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^^SS^^Si^WS^ 



LiBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Slielf..Ul4 

UNITED -STATES OF AMERICA. 



^ser 



THE SECRET 



OF 



SPIRITUAL POWER. 



By GEO. D. WATSON, D. D. 



BOSTON: Jj^'^^ 

THE Mcdonald & gill co. 

1894. 






Copyrighted, 1894, 

By the Mcdonald & gill co. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEII. PAGE. 

I. " The Secret of Spiritual Power," 1 

II. " Tlie Secret of Spiritual Power," . 7 

III. " The Secret of Spiritual Power," . 12 

IV. ^'TheSecret of Spiritual Power," . IT 
Y. " The Secret of Spiritual Power," . 21 

YI. "The Secret of Spiritual Power," . 25 

YII. Liquid and Solid Food, . . . 30 

YIII. Hindrances to Faith, . . . 35 

IX. Faint Not,. ..... 41 

X. Affliction and Glory, .... 46 

XI. Affliction and Glory, .... 54 

.^XII. The Zone of Entire Consecration.. . GO 

--^XIII. The Entirety of Consecration, . . 65 

— -- XIY. Excavation Before Edification, . .70 

XY. The Nature of Perfect Love, . . 75 

XYL The Effect of Perfect Love, . . 80 

XYII. Superficial Religious Life, . . 85 

XYIII. Envy, . 90 

XIX. The Leakage of Love, .... 94 

XX. The Inner Man, 97 

XXI. Spiritual Discrimination, . . . 102 

XXII. Instantaneous Purification, . . . 108 

XXIII. Hindrances to Holiness, ... 115 

XXIY. The Threefold Evidence in Grace, . 119 

XXY. The Three Manifestations of Jesus . 126 

XXYI. Walking in Love, 132 

XXYII. Heavenly Treasure, .... 138 

XXYIII. Making Friends with Mammon, . . 147 

XXIX. The Faith of the Syro-Phenician Woman 151 

XXX. The Faith of the Syro-Phenician Woman 156 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAI. POWER. 

A GREAT deal has been said and written 
upon the subject of spiritual power, and 
perhaps I can add nothing original upon the 
subject, but may help to stir up some pure 
minds by way of remembrance. 

While attending a holiness convention in 
Star Hall, Manchester, England, one day, there 
opened up to my mind a series of thoughts as 
to the secret of God's power in man. In the 
first place, the secret of spiritual power consists 
in the union of the Holy Ghost with the puri- 
fied faculties and natural energies of the human 
soul, and, on the human side, it consists in the 
utter abandonment of the soul to, and a heart)^ 
cooperation with, the Holy Spirit. It is not 
eloquence, nor style, nor personal magnetism, 
nor psychology, nor the natural energy of the 
human soul, not even the energy of a purified 
soul. The soul may be purified, and yet as a 
mere creature, the creature faculties and crea- 
ture powers do not have the power of God in 



2 THE SECUET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

soul-saving, in aggressive spiritual work, in 
bringing sinners to repentance, or believers into 
holiness. It is true that a human soul free 
from sin, as a mere creature, has a marvelous 
power above other unsaved souls, but as a crea- 
ture, though it be holy, yet in itself does not 
possess that secret energy which can communi- 
cate conviction and lead to salvation. So that, 
however holy a man is, there must be joined on 
to him a divine current, a supernatural energ}^ 
which is emphatically divine, and of which he 
is the vehicle and conductor. 

This divine power is a secret unknown to the 
world, uncomprehended by the most learned 
sinners, misunderstood by carnal professors, 
utterly beyond the grasp of philosophers or 
scientists. Let us notice some Scripture proofs. 
Jesus had a pure soul ; from the very initial of 
His being He was perfectly free from the fallen 
nature of Adam, and, as a mere man, He was 
superior in moral strength to all the men of the 
world. And yet it was not by His holy crea- 
ture-strength that He did the works of His 
father. The power tliat Jesus used in working 
miracles, in preaching sermons, in healing dis- 
eases, in casting out demon-s, in saving souls 
was not the power of His sinless soul, but it 
was the power flowing from the baptism of the 
Spirit upon His pure humanity. This is dis- 



THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 3 

tinctly marked in the two periods of His life. 
From His infancy to His baptism in Jordan He 
was entirely holy, but wrought no miracles, but 
when the Holy Ghost descended on Him, from 
that time on, He was the Anointed One, and 
worked under the perpetual unction that flowed 
through Him from the Holy Spirit. So that in 
addition to His holy creature-faculties, God 
poured into Him the fullness of the Spirit. 
We are told that when Jesus had gotten 
through with the temptation of the wilderness, 
He ''returned to Galilee in the power of the 
Holy Ghost." This expression of returning in 
the ''power of the Holy Ghost," implies that 
there was added unto Him a power which He 
did not possess as a mere pure man. 

We sometimes hear it said that " holiness is 
power," and that all the power we need for the 
work of God is heart purity, but these remarks 
are not entirely correct according to the Word 
of God. It is true that heart purity is power 
in the creature sense of power, but it is not the 
power of the Holy Ghost in the Scripture sense 
of it. Jesus is our example, and we read that 
He received in addition to His pure humanity 
the power of the Holy Ghost, and tliat it was 
"through the eternal Spirit He offered Himself 
without spot unto God," and that it was 
"through the Holy Ghost He gave command- 



4 THE SECRET OF SPt RITUAL POWER. 

nient unto the apostles." And He so often 
affirms, '' The words I speak unto you I speak 
not of Myself," that is, the words did not pro- 
ceed from His merely pure humanity. Now, if 
Jesus needed the Holy Ghost united with His 
holy creature nature in order to give Him the 
peculiar secret of power in His mission, and if 
He is our example, how much more do we need 
that we should have our sanctified hearts and 
our mental faculties in vital union with the 
Holy Spirit, that by that union we may do the 
work of God. So that we cannot depend on 
the natural energies even of our saved souls. 
We cannot depend on ourselves in any form, 
nor on any creature, or number of creatures 
however holy they may be. 

Another proof text is, Jesus says, '' Ye shall 
receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming 
upon you." The old version says, '' Ye shall 
receive power after that the Holy Ghost has 
come upon you." But it is more correct to 
take the marginal reading. According to the 
thought in the old version, the power is a some- 
thing which is detached from the Holy Ghost, 
but according to the margin, the power is 
identified with the Holy Ghost, and is spoken 
of as a current or wave which gushes out from 
the conjunction of the Holy Spirit and the hu- 
man soul. Just as the current of water in the 



THi^. SKCRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 5 

wilderness did not gush from the rock of itself, 
nor did it gush from the rod, but when the rod 
touched the rock, from the union of the rod 
and the rock, the stream poured forth, so the 
current of divine power does not go forth from 
the Holy Ghost apart from the human soul, nor 
does it proceed from the merely purified soul, 
but when tlie sanctified soul and the Holy 
Ghost are united, from that ineffable union 
there goes forth what is scripturally called the 
power of God. Thus the secret of power is in 
having the Holy Ghost unite Himself to our 
souls, cleansing, filling, inspiring us, supplying 
us according to each emergency with super- 
natural light, energy, wisdom, courage, tact and 
zeal, to do the will and work of God. This 
power is something that God puts within the 
soul, which the soul itself does not compre- 
hend, so that a person under its enduement 
does not break down with discouragement, does 
not break down under a thousand things that 
would break down the human soul if it were 
left by itself. 

One of the best illustrations of this secret 
power is a current of electricity, of which the 
sanctified faculties of man form the negative 
pole, and the Holy Ghost the positive. If 
these are separated there is no current, but 
united there goes forth a shock to startle the 



6 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

slumbering, to awaken sinners, to cause tlie 
hearers to break down in penitential weeping, 
to reveal to Christian people as by a flash of 
lightning the original impurity in their hearts, 
and to move congregations toward the Saviour 
with earnest cries for salvation. The scarcity 
of these celestial shocks is because professedly 
Christian workers trust to creature strength, or 
to the mere orthodoxy of their words. ''Cursed 
is the man that trusteth in man," and especially 
cursed is he that trusteth in himself. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL PO\YER. 

ANOTHER condition essential to the full 
eiiduement of spiritual power is tlie 
crucifixion of self in order that we may be 
united with the Holy Ghost, God cannot fill 
us with His Spirit, illuminate us, empower us 
with courage and boldness, and that intuitive 
and divine insight and energy until we are 
first crucified. We must first die before we 
live ; we must reach the point of our own utter 
inherent foolishness in order to receive the 
wisdom from above; we must reach the con- 
sciousness of our own indescribable weakness 
in order to join on to God's power. His 
strength is made perfect at the point where our 
weakness is perfect. 

In the account in Genesis, where God met 
Jacob at Peniel and wrestled with him, Jacob's 
prayer prevailed at the very point where he 
was utterly conquered. We hear it said that 
Jacob wrestled with the angel, but the Word 
tells us, '' There wrestled a man with Jacob." 

(7) 



8 THE SECRET OF SPIHITUAL POWER, 

Let US remember that this wrestling was not 
witli a convicted sinner, for Jacob had entered 
the famil}^ of God twenty years before at 
Bethel, but it was the conflict between the 
perfect will of God and the original perversity 
of Jacob's nature. At first Jacob thought he 
was wrestling with a mere man, but he had not 
wrestled long before he discovered that the 
man was an angel, and, a little later, this angel 
assumed the proportions of the Prince of the 
Angels and, before the conflict ended, he found 
it was God Himself. So that wliat seemed a 
mere man at the beginning turned out in the 
end to be the Jehovah Elohim, the Lord 
Almighty, who was no less a personage than 
the Lord Jesus. 

How often this is illustrated in our experi- 
ence. God comes to us in disguise, and seeks 
to conquer us at unexpected points and in 
unexpected ways, wrestling with us in the 
humble armor of some petty circumstance or 
person, hiding His infinite majesty under such 
little cheap apparel that we never dream it is 
God till we are conquered and the mist falls 
from our vision, and, like Jacob, we are amazed 
to find ourselves ^'face to face with God." 
The Lord wrestled with Jacob in order to 
perfectly break down all the hidden resistance 
within him to the Holy Ghost, all the latent 



THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 9 

resistance to God's will and love. And when 
he found that the wrestling was hard and de- 
layed, he touched the hollow of his thigh and 
put it out of joint. 

Here is another suggestion for us. Jacob 
was a strong man physically, and a good walker 
with his strongly built constitution, and as the 
thigh joint is the locality of strengthf especially 
in wrestling, in long marching and in lifting or 
bearing heavy burdens, the Lord broke him 
down at the very point where he was strong, 
and in that very joint which he would likely 
boast of or depend on. And when that point 
was touched, and he was crucified in the last 
reserve and main dependence of his energy so 
that he had to limp as a frail thing, then the 
Holy Ghost flowed in and filled his being. 
Thus his utter helplessness became the most 
fitting condition of his union with the Holy 
Spirit, so that he limped in his body but leaped 
in his soul. Now, the same thing takes place 
in us. In order that we may receive the 
strength of God, the secret of power, God 
wrestles with us, and the wrestling must go on 
until He breaks down in us all resistance to His 
will, not only all open resistance, or known and 
conscious resistance, but all the hidden and un- 
suspected resistance that lies in our fibre or 
feelings, or faculties ; that'subtle stubbornness 



10 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

of nature which the delicate nature of God can 
see and feel, but which we do not perceive. 
And He must break us down at the very point 
where we are strongest, where our energy is 
lodged, be that in head or hand or heart, be 
that in our mind or management or money, be 
that in our education or prejudice or desires or 
affections, in whatever point of our being we 
may fancy we are the best, in whatever locality 
there is stored up the most of self, there is 
where the finger of God must put the knife, 
there is where the last resistance must expire in 
order that the Holy Spirit may unite us with 
Himself and make us partakers with the Holy 
Ghost. 

Paul says, '^I am crucified with Christ, 
nevertheless I live." All through the Word of 
God we find that crucifixion precedes deep 
spiritual power. Not only must God break 
down the sins of a sinner in order to convert 
him, but in those who are truly regenerated He 
must needs break down their wisdom, learning^ 
prudence, their pet views, their churchly train- 
ing and prejudice, their narrow-mindedness, 
their knowledge, their righteousness. It takes 
the Lord just about as long to break down a 
Christian man's righteousness as to break down 
a sinner's unrighteousness. Do not understand 
me that God ever breaks down His own wisdom 



THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 11 

or righteousness or strength, but He breaks 
down that form of wisdom, righteousness and 
strength which sprouts and grows out of human 
nature. Whatever originates in self, in the 
creature nature, must be crucified in order that 
the creature may be wedded to Christ through 
the Holy Ghost, and from that sacred union 
derive other wisdom, righteousness and strength 
infinitely superior to that of any creature. We 
are to let go not only our wicked selves, but, 
also, our seemingly pious selves in order that 
we may take hold of God. The self -life at any 
point is like attaching a conductor to a telegraph 
wire which diverts the electric message and 
runs it into the ground. It is only the insulated 
wire through which man can pour his intelli- 
gence through the electric current, so it is the 
crucified and insulated soul through which God 
can pour His unmixed truth, and upon which 
He can place the secret unction of holy power. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SECKET OF SPIEITUAL POWER. 

ANOTHER secret of spiritual power lies in 
the perpetual ignoring of our creature 
ability. I do not say a perpetual denying of 
our ability. Telling an untruth never helps 
God any, whether it be against ourselves or 
against Satan, and if we represent ourselves as 
being nothing in the absolute sense of that 
world it is un-Scriptural. 

But I say that the secret of power lies in the 
constant ignoring of our creature ability as a 
sufficiency of success. In the realm of creature- 
hood, our natural ability is something, but in 
the realm of divine grace, where spiritual 
miracles are to be wrought, we can be efficient 
in the hands of God by a most perfect ignoring 
of our sufficiency. It is in this sense we find 
all those Scripture expressions about being 
" dust and ashes," being a " broken vessel," 
'' the lame taking the prey," and being less 
than the least, '' being nothing," '' taking the 

(12) 



THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 13 

weak things, and things which are not, to bring 
to naught things that are." 

We are to put ourselves in the hands of God 
without relying on our powers. We are to 
abandon ourselves to the uttermost to the Spirit 
of God, and, at the same time, utterly ignore 
any strength or wisdom or goodness that belong 
to us as creatures. 

Let me give you a sample. Joseph was 
wonderfully sanctified in prison. We are told 
in the Psalms that while he was in prison " the 
Word of the Lord tried him," it so tried, 
proved, tested him as to lead him through a 
perfect crucifixion. When Pharaoh sent for 
him they made haste and shaved him and 
changed his prison raiment and rushed him in 
speedily before the king. The king said, " I 
have heard you have wisdom and can interpret 
dreams." In Joseph's reply to the king there 
is brought out this secret of power. He said 
to the king, " It is not in me." This was the 
negative pole to the current. While his nat- 
ural faculties and talents were far above the 
majority of his fellows, yet he knew that the 
interpretation of the king's dream was a divine 
secret for a divine purpose, and lay beyond the 
region of any uninspired human mind. Hence 
the perfect renunciation of his own ability. 
Then he said,^^ But God will give Pharaoh an 



14 THE SECRET OF SPIRlTtfAL POWER. 

answer." What a world of meaning there is 
in that expression, '' But God ! " And then 
leaning back on the Holy Spirit in self-renun- 
ciation, in utter abandonment to the divine 
will, God put into his heart and mind the 
interpretation. And so he gave the interpre- 
tation as God gave it to him. He did not 
know the interpretation of it in prison, but lie 
got the interpretation right there on the spot, 
and God poured a stream of light and discern- 
ment through that man because he had died to 
creature-wisdom, and his whole being was in 
such an attitude of dependence that God could 
prompt him to speak. He was not a battery, 
but the wire that conveyed the current. And 
when he finished the interpretation the king 
said, '' The Spirit of God is in Joseph." That 
heathen king saw a divine light and power in 
that poor prisoner which surpassed all the wise 
men of Egypt. 

There you have the secret power, a power 
that convinced a heathen king, a power that so 
pierced through his heathen nature and caused 
him to adopt the plans of an ex-convict, and 
thereby immortalize his name forever. 

We may also take the case of the apostles, 
when through them was healed the lame man 
at the beautiful gate of the temple. The people 
looked upon Peter and John as demigods, and 



THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 15 

Peter said, " Why do you look upon us, as if by 
our holiness we had made this man well, it is 
by the name of Jesus, through faith in His 
Name, this man has been made whole as you 
see." 

All through the Word of God, the secret of 
power is to ''trust in the Lord with all our 
heart, and to lean not to our own understand- 
ing." Mark it is not merely not to depend on 
our understanding, but not even to lean or 
incline towards it. We are so apt to lean on 
our experience as if wisdom and unction were 
accumulated forces stored up in our faculties. 
Because a man has been preaching several 
years he is apt to lean upon his old sermons 
and old plans, and because we have been in 
the Lord's work for some time, we are apt to 
lean upon our methods. 

True, there is a sense in which we acquire 
wisdom and facility and fluency. The man 
who is constantly at work for God, preaching, 
exhorting and teaching, does acquire experience, 
and becomes skilled in the exercise of his gifts, 
and in discriminating the fitness of times and 
things, and even from the creature standpoint 
the skillful use of gifts and doctrine amounts to 
a good deal. 

But I am now talking about the secret of 
divine power, not the secret of creature power. 



16 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

The secret of divine power is, that with all our 
learning and skill and experience, we are never 
to bank on it, never draw a check on it for suc- 
cess, but view it all about in the same way as 
the dust out of which God made man's body. 

If we desire to be workers for God, and keep in 
the power, we must walk along this path of ignor- 
ing creature ability and depending every time, 
as at the beginning, for the gift of the Spirit. 

Oh, if we could only recollect ourselves. 
Recollect we are nothing, that we are empty 
and weak ; recollect our attitude toward God 
and His work. God gives us unction not as a 
reservoir, but as a stream ; not as a fountain, 
but as a current ; not as a battery, but as a 
transmission. In a reservoir the water is 
dammed up, but in a channel the water is in 
perpetual flow. And so fully sanctified souls, 
acting under the power of the Holy Ghost, are 
more like a telegraph wire along which the 
lightning can flash at any time, and not like a 
battery of stored-up electricity. Many a Chris- 
tian worker has lost the power by unintention- 
ally regarding himself as a reservoir. 

We are to keep at the point of self-nothing- 
ness, and at the same time look to God alone 
for sufficiency just as truly as we take the sun- 
shine from the sun to-day and do not think of 
using the sunshine of yesterday. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

ANOTHER secret of divine power consists 
in using only the appropriate truth which 
is requisite for the salvation of souls. The 
Holy Ghost works through the truth, and 
whether He convicts for sin, or regenerates, or 
sanctifies, or empowers, or imparts special com- 
fort or wisdom. He uses that part of doctrine or 
truth which is especially adapted for the pur- 
pose. All truth is not saving truth, even all 
Scripture truth is not saving truth. All Scrip- 
ture is given by inspiration and is profitable, 
but it is not necessarily all profitable in the 
same direction. The Holy Ghost in saving 
people uses the truth especially designed to 
that end. 

The truth of man's fall, liuman depravity and 
need, the incarnation of the Son of God, vicari- 
ous atonement, the personality and agency of 
the Holy Ghost, the resurrection of the dead, 
heaven and hell, rewards and punishments, 
these are the staple, soul-saving truths. All of 

(IT) 



18 THE SECRET OF SPlRJtUAL POWER. 

these truths are interwoven throughout the 
Scriptures in history, parable, miracle, prophecy, 
command, promise, example and poetry in a 
thousand shades and forms, so that in almost 
any chapter of the Bible there are enough of 
these truths to furnisli the Holy Spirit material 
for conviction and salvation. 

But even Scripture truth can be handled in 
such a way as to render it of no effect. It can 
be so generalized, or made to serve a merely poet- 
ical or intellectual or sentimental purpose which 
is nothing else than handling the Word of God 
deceitfully. 

There are certain elements that do not con- 
duct electricity. If you were to make your 
telegraph wire of glass, you would never get a 
message through it. It is pretty and nice and 
brilliant, far handsomer than iron, but it does 
not convey lightning. And just so there are 
certain truths in nature, philosophy, history, 
and a certain way of shaping even Scripture 
truth as to turn it into a glass wire, beautiful, 
bright, crystal truths, but along which there 
runs no piercing conviction, no flasli of holy 
light, no sin-consuming fire. It is true that 
salvation is wrought by an act of God, but 
that action of the Spirit is always through the 
instrumentality of appropriate truth, just as the 
act of a soldier in battle is through some 



THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 19 

chosen weapon. Man's fall and depravity pro- 
duces the need of salvation, the death of Jesus 
the procuring cause of salvation, the Word of 
God the instrument of salvation, the Holy 
Ghost the executive agent of salvation, eternity 
with its heaven or hell the motives to salvation, 
and faith the condition of salvation. These 
are the columnar truths in the temple of re- 
demption. Knock any of these columns away 
and, like another blind Sampson, sooner or 
later the whole fabric of revealed truth will be 
perverted and tumble down in infinite calamity 
upon your soul. 

There are many preachers and religious 
teachers who hold some of these truths very 
feebly or not at all, but such havoc they do 
make. Their work is very superficial and tran- 
sitory, they produce fanaticisms or wild fire, or 
else dead, cold formalism, or else a light-headed 
and vain sort of religion. There are manj^ 
religious teachers, some of them brilliant, preach- 
ing on mere morality, on socialism, on politics, 
on questions of labor and capital, on the 
'' higher criticism," on railroad accidents, on 
little recent events, on anything and everj^thing 
except those great giant truths that break down 
the soul, enrage Satan, gladden heaven, and 
disclose both the secrets of the human heart 
and the destinies of eternity. 



20 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWEH. 

The Holy Ghost will honor those who honor 
Him, and He will honor those truths which He 
has chosen as the conductors of His power. 

Our wisdom consists in implicitly conform- 
ing to God's plan, and putting ourselves right 
in line with the chosen order of God. 

A plain farmer, or lumberman, or converted 
drunkard, or plowboy who is unskilled, from 
the creature standpoint, but who, by entire 
abandonment to God, passes himself over into 
the region of the supernatural and, in perfect 
simplicity of spirit, handles the supernatural 
weapons of truth, will be in contact with the 
infinite battery of holy power, and slay giants 
in sin, save and build up souls and transform a 
community as a whole regiment of philosophers 
could not do. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

IN order to have the abiding secret of power, we 
must consent to seeming failure for Jesus. 
I do not know how that thought may strike 
you, but if you will look at the great crisal 
events in the Bible, and into the lives of people 
of great faith, you will find over and over again 
that the sweep of power turned on the pivot of 
a perfect willingness to fail utterly in the eye 
of the world. Those who work with God can- 
not be failures, but there are times when from 
our standpoint and feeling everything seems to 
fail utterly, and our quiet acquiescence in such 
apparent failure for Jesus' sake, while it closes 
the valve on the creature side, it opens the 
divine side for the inflow of the energy that 
moves the universe. It is very easj^ for even 
sanctified souls to become attached to their 
work and to want it to succeed as their work. 
It is so easy for devoted persons running camp 
meetings, conventions, faith homes, missions, or 
any kind of philanthropic or spiritual enter- 

(21) 



22 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

prise, to become greatly attached to tlie enter- 
prise itself, and to have an overweening desire 
for success. But a close analysis of the heart 
will often reveal the fact that the craving for 
success is because we are putting ourselves into 
the affair, and the Holy Ghost who searches all 
things, finds out the terrible secret that after 
all it is self that wants success. Now, in order 
that God may get all the glory, He must blister 
the fair face of seeming success, make us die 
to ourselves in our work, and then He can 
accomplish results greater than we dream. 
Jesus does not want us to get wedded to His 
work instead of to Him. We are so frail even 
after we are sanctified, and although our de- 
pravity is purged away, all our faculties are so 
weak, that God must keep our wings clipped or 
we would fly over the bounds. A great many 
do jump the track. The man that never feels 
he has anything to boast of in his work, but 
always looks at the work as being nothing to 
his credit, is the one who is always at the point 
where he is willing to be counted a failure in 
the eyes of men. Read the record of great 
faith enterprises, such as under Luther, or Wes- 
ley, or George Muller's Orphanage, or Dr. 
Cullis' Consumptives' Home, or Bishop Taylor's 
work in India and Africa, and see how thou- 
sands of times in these men's lives they had to 



THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 23 

consent to eternal failure in the eyes, not only 
of tlie AA'orlcl, but in the eyes of philosophers, 
churches, ministers and renowned ecclesiastics. 
Note their solitary struggles in prayer, their 
solitary mountain-peak convictions, the lofty 
possibilities they saw that no one else could see. 
See how they surpassed all the law makers in 
their law, outstripped college professors in their 
teaching, eclipsed earthly bankers in their 
handling of money, how they put to shame the 
idleness, shiftlessness and unbelief of the ma- 
joritj^ of nominal Christians around them, and 
in order to achieve such great results, they had 
constantly to lie in the dust, to bear criticism, 
coldness and contempt from those from whom 
they expected help. And over and over again, 
in their hearts, had to say " Amen," to perfect 
failure. Let me give you a Scripture sample or 
two. Esther was told by Mordecai to do a cer- 
tain daring thing to save the Jews. She said, 
" If I do this it may involve my death," but 
sent back word that she would comply wdth his 
terms, hazard her life, '' and if I perish, I 
perish." That heart agreement to perish, to 
die and be buried in disgrace, w^as the key that 
unlocked the prison door, that let a whole 
nation out into liberty. There was the secret 
of power. When the great monarch of Baby- 
lon rebuked the three Hebrews for not worship- 



24 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

ping his image, they responded, ^' Be it known 
unto you that we shall not bow down to your 
image, the God that we serve is able to deliver 
us from the fiery furnace, but if not, we will 
not bow down to your image." The secret of 
power lay in that expression ^' but if not." If 
we live by faith and walk with God, there will 
be many times in our lives when similar tests 
will confront us, and similar furnaces blaze for 
our destruction, and to go through unscorched, 
we must carry that great "but if not" in our 
hearts. The real value of any work we do for 
God, can often be measured by the amount of 
difficulties in the way of doing it, or else by the 
effort Satan makes to destroy it after it is done. 
In the book of Revelation, Satan stood to 
devour the man child as soon as He was born. 
This is true of every work of God. If you 
receive a great blessing from the Holy Ghost, 
Satan will soon try to destroy or pervert it. If 
there be a glorious camp meeting or convention 
or revival, Satan will find human tools, often- 
times within the church, to blast or check the 
gracious work if possible. In such seasons, the 
true servant of God must consent to the seem- 
ing failure of his labors, and at the same time 
go right on working, and commit the work to 
the absolute care of God. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE SECKET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

THE concluding thought in connection with 
the secret of power is, we must constantly 
recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit, 
There is a marvelous secret of strength in 
recollecting the divine presence in us and in 
the work God calls us to. " Moses endured as 
seeing Him who was invisible." " My presence 
shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." 
The saints in the middle ages looked upon 
holiness as '' the practice of the divine pres- 
ence." Every time we go into a meeting or 
speak to a soul or pray or sing or work for God, 
if then and there we recognize the Holy Spirit 
as in us and with us, it will not only be the 
source of our inspiration, but it will be the act 
of faith which God honors with success. I do 
not say we are not to pray for the presence of 
the Holy Ghost, or for Him to fall upon us and 
the \^rd, but that, having p]'ayed in the name 
of Jesus, we are to recognize the prayer as 
answered. The Holy Ghost always accom- 

(25) 



26 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

panies His own Word. In every meeting for 
the purpose of salvation or spiritual edification, 
the Holy Spirit is invariably on hand. David 
said the \^OYdi prevented him with His goodness. 
The w^ord "prevent" originally meant to rnn 
before, just as Elijah ran before Ahab when 
there was going to be a plentiful rain, so the 
Holy Spirit runs before us preceding every 
copious work of grace. Jesus says, '' Where 
two or three are met together in My name, 
I am there in the midst of them." Not, He 
will be there, but He is there, waiting to meet 
them. The Holy Spirit is in the church before 
we get there, in the pulpit waiting for us, in 
every human soul before we speak to it, and the 
secret of power is, to thoughtfully, trustfully, 
unwaveringly recognize Him there. When 
Jacob was converted at Bethel he said, " God 
is in this place and I knew it not." Twenty 
years after, when he had power to prevail with 
God, he recognized the Almighty in the form 
of a man, and went forth with an enduement 
which melted his hardened brother into tears. 
The Holy Ghost always moves through appro- 
priate conductors, of which there are only two; 
namely, a truth or a personality. He never 
works except through some truth or ,^ome 
person. If w^e use the truth according to His 
will, and fully yield our person to Him we are 



THE SECRET OF tS PI RITUAL POWER, 27 

then to recognize Him in the use of these two 
agencies. 

"The Spirit and the bride say come." The 
bride is God's spiritual church. The Holy 
Ghost says ^'Come/' and the Pentecostal church 
says " Come," but you notice the Holy Spirit 
gets His invitation in ahead of the church. 
And when you go to a sinner and say ''Come 
to God," the Spirit has been there ahead of you, 
and is there to sanction your invitation. 

The Spirit has gone to every child of 
humanity. I do not know just what the Spirit 
is doing, but it is my place to recognize His 
presence. In every assembly where- the pure 
gospel is preached, there is some susceptible 
case. Some sinner susceptible to conviction, 
some believer that is a candidate for a deeper 
experience. We never know who the cases are. 
It is frequently the very persons we least 
expect, but the Spirit knows, and I am to 
recognize Him as working on the people. This 
very recognition of His presence will inspire us 
with energy and definiteness. 

Did you ever see a blind person in a room 
with nobody there and he felt himself alone? 
Did you ever notice the countenance of such a 
one when he supposed himself alone, and then 
note the instant and wondrous change when he 
recognized your presence? The very recogni- 



28 THE SECRET OF iSPlRITUAL POWER. 

tion of another presence transfigured his 
features. I knew an old blind lady, who, when 
sitting alone, wore a very sad expression, but at 
the sound of your footstep, or a spoken word, 
the change in her expression was marvelous. 
The same thing is true in the spiritual realm. 
To forget the presence of God, to regard Him 
as at a distance, is to detach ourselves from the 
source of power, and our souls droop. But the 
moment we intelligently and clearly apprehend, 
God is here^ the Spirit, the Comforter is in this 
place, He is ready and willing to work through 
me to the pulling down of strongholds, what a 
difference it will make in our words, prayers 
and songs. 

There will be a freedom, an unction, a glad- 
ness, which nothing else can inspire. ''Lo, I 
am with you alwaj^s." I do not care how poor 
or infirm or weak you are, the moment your 
soul clearly apprehends the eternal verity of 
that fact, "I am with you always," there will 
be kept open in your soul the secret spring of a 
power that is above all eloquence, for it makes 
eloquence; magnetism, for it creates magnetism ; 
the power which alone is sufficient for gospel 
purposes. 

These are some of the items which have come 
to me in connection with this subject. It is 
passing wonderful what utterly frail and weak 



THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 29 

things God can use for His glory, especially 
when we work, not for oui* emolument or fame, 
but for the glory of the name of Jesus, perfectly 
willing to be loved and prized by God alone. 
When the Lord has been pleased to use us in 
any work, the best thing we can do is to give 
the work up to God the moment we are done 
with it, and drop back into our native littleness 
and nothingness, and rest in God. 



CHAPTER VII. 

LIQUID AND SOLID FOOD. 

IN the fifth chapter of Hebrews we have a 
significant hint as to what constitutes spirit- 
ual perfection ; it is the difference between feed- 
ing on liquid and solid food, or the difference 
between chewing and sucking. '' For when for 
the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need 
that one teach you again whicli be the first 
principles of the oracles of God, and are become 
such as have need of milk and not of strong 
meat." The term ''strong meat" could more 
emphatically be rendered solid food. " For 
every one that useth milk — that is, liquid food 
— is inexperienced in the word of righteous- 
ness, for he is a babe " ; that is, has not yet cut 
his teeth. "But strong meat — solid food — 
belongeth to them that are perfect, to those who 
by the habit of perfection, have their senses — 
spiritual faculties — exercised to discern both 
good and evil." Heb. 5:12-14. 

Instead of interpreting this Scripture so as 
to make Christian babyhood extend for twenty 

(30) 



LIQUID AND SOLID FOOD, 31 

years, until we reach our full human stature, 
and thereby locating Christian perfection a long 
time after regeneration, the real pivot of the 
teaching is the difference between teeth and no 
teeth, and drinking and chewing food. A babe 
who has not cut its teeth, is not perfect as a 
member of the genus homo^ because he has not 
all the physical organs belonging to his species 
until he has teeth. The expression in the four- 
teenth verse about being of full age, in the 
original signifies perfection and has no reference 
to maturity or old age at all, but simply to the 
perfection or entirety of creaturehood, having 
all the parts and organs belonging to a complete 
creature, which a babe with no teeth does not 
have. So instead of the old legal analogy of 
putting complete salvation off into old age, it 
ought to come, according to the strict meaning 
of this Scripture, never later after tlie new birth 
than a set of teeth comes after the first birth. 
It is not perfection of time, but perfection of 
nature, that is taught in this passage. The 
difference between feeding on liquid and solid 
food is very pertinent, and can be recognized 
among piofessed Christians in many ways. 

Solid and liquid truth. The perfect believer 
feeds on solid truth. That is, the whole truth 
as revealed in tlie Bible, the truth unmixed with 
fables or rationalistic perversions, or Sweden- 



32 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

borgiaii dreams or ecclesiastical traditions, and 
not diluted with human creeds. He can chew 
the whole wheat and eschew the chaff. The 
baby Christian, on the other hand, must have 
the truth diluted before he can swallow it, it 
must come to him in his particular church 
bottle, labelled with his particular church 
authorities, boiled up according to his par- 
ticular catechism, and in various ways mixed 
and diluted with some form or ceremony or 
mixture of uninspired thought to render it 
palatable to him. 

The complete Christian is governed by solid 
principle and not liquid policy. It is humili- 
ating to see how many baby Christians — even 
gray-headed babes, are governed by soft, flexible 
policy instead of a perfect unmixed principle. 
Touch any question of revealed truth or any 
application of truth to morals and reforms, such 
as prohibition, the Sabbath, tobacco, the use of 
money, the spread of holiness, and notice the 
lack of spinal column, of manly, outspoken 
truth. When we see the toning down of God's 
saving truth of professed scholars and theolog- 
ical teachers, the cringing before wealth and 
office, the cowardice and time-serving attitude 
toward all questions of divine moment, the 
adoption of human standards and human pol- 
icies, the drifting with majorities, the accepting 



LIQUID AND SOLID FOOD, 33 

of soft sentimentalism in doctrine and disci- 
pline, we get an evidence that multitudes of 
professed Christians have never cut their teeth, 
and have not enough bone in their moral 
mechanism to masticate the hard food which 
makes Christian heroes. We see the difference 
between solid and liquid feeding in the matter 
of tithing and the use of money. The full 
Christian makes the giving of money and the 
using of his worldly goods for the glory of God, 
just as much a part of his life as prayer or faith. 
He never waits for anniversary sermons or beg- 
ging appeals, or oyster suppers or a Chicago 
fire, to draw out of him a pittance for the Lord; 
but having fed on the solid truth that " he is 
not his own," that ''God loveth a cheerful 
giver," that he is to '' lay up treasure in 
heaven," it becomes a part of his very Christian 
being to give according to his ability, for the 
spread of salvation. The liquid food Christian 
gives but scantily, without settled convictions 
or hearty joyousness in the act, and even then 
it is by spurts and spasms, when he is made to 
weep under some heartrending appeal, or when 
it is coaxed out of him by some teasing 
petitioner or by some church frolic or festival. 
When all the so-called money-giving of the 
church is sifted out before the judgment seat, 
how little of it will be seen to have sprung from 



34 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

a pure, generous, joyous giving of the heart. 
Another difference of the solid and liquid feed- 
ing is found in the matter of comfort and con- 
solation in seasons of sorrow and trial. The 
solid food Christian in hours of great distress 
and sorrow, will go to the pure Word and 
closet himself with God, and hy praying in the 
Spirit and reposing on the great and precious 
promises and a steady looking to Jesus, will 
gather such comfort, such quietness of mind, 
such internal girdings of the heart, as the un- 
renewed mind has no conception of. The 
liquid food Christian will drop intomurmurings 
and complainings, run to human or earthly 
springs for a draught of comfort, and failing to 
find it, will be tempted of Satan to apply to the 
quagmire of dreams or spiritual mediums or 
some other wretched device as a substitute for 
that pure crystal stream which flows alone from 
God and the Lamb. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HINDRANCES TO FAITH. 

'*0 thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?'' 
Matt. 14:31. 

THE pivot word in this question is "where- 
fore." Doubt should have a sufficient 
reason for it. Neither Peter nor any other has 
been able to find a satisfactory answer to this 
all-piercing " wherefore '^ of Jesus. The impli- 
cation is, God could allow us to doubt if we had 
sufficient reason for it. The unbelief of the 
human heart startled and amazed Jesus at every 
turn. It was like the air on the frozen polar 
sea, that pierced His sensitive nature on every 
side. God made man to believe, organized his 
whole being on that line, launched him out in 
such a sea of relationships with nature and the 
supernatural, with his fellows, with the past 
and future, that he could not exist, could never 
plant nor reap, never give nor receive testimonj^, 
in fact, never do anything of import, except by 
the exercise of a measure of faith. Doubt is 
no part of our original constitution, and can 

(35) 



36 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

never be explained, except on the basis of a 
terrible calamity in our moral nature. God has 
never deceived human beings, never played fast 
and loose with the hopes and fears of His crea- 
tures. The greatest reason for Peter's doubt 
was the remaining carnality in his soul, which 
prompted an uneasy fear in such a sudden 
emergency of danger. But while carnality is 
the root of unbelief, there are some other con- 
siderations which will enable us to explain it. 

I. One hindrance to faith is that of looking 
at our surroundings^ and not to the fixed prom- 
ises of Jesus. In the incident of the text we 
have an example of the power of our surround- 
ings versus the power of the promise of God. 
There were two things upon which Peter might 
fix his attention ; one was the word " come," 
uttered by the Saviour, the other was the 
waves of water. Peter was not destitute of 
faith, for he asked the Lord to bid him walk on 
the sea. He felt an inward inclination to go 
out to Christ on the water, but wanted the 
authority of the Master's word like a plank 
under his feet to authorize him in doing so ; and 
that sublime inward prompting which was 
evidently of God, never broke down until his 
eyes were diverted to take in the danger of the 
waves. Here we have the conflict in every life, 
that between the prompting of the inward 



HINDRANCES TO FAITH. 37 

Spirit to trust God without reserve, and that of 
the senses which survey the instability of out- 
ward things. It is a battle between the invisi- 
ble truth and the visible shadow, the stability 
of the rock and the motion of the sea. The 
appearance of the waves and the significance of 
the word " come," were to human reason di- 
rectly the opposite of each other. Through all 
ages, the waves had never failed to drown, and 
on the other hand, God's word had never 
deceived any one ; so here were two invariable 
things that met as opposites ; the only ques- 
tion was, which of these invariables was the 
stronger ; which law should have the preced- 
ence, that of gravity or that of the word of 
God? The word "come," from the lips of 
Jesus, had more authority than all the rolling 
seas, for it was the power of His simple w^ord 
that set every sea in motion. The water had 
tlie appearance of power, but in the word of 
Jesus was the real power. Most of our life is 
illustrated by this incident. We live on a roll- 
ing sea, we are repeatedly shut up to the alter- 
native of trusting either the appearance of 
things or the invisible truth of God. If we 
listen to the blowing of the wind, it will shut 
out the omnipotent voice of Jesus. If we look 
at the white-capped waves of circumstance, we 
shall not see the outstretched hand of Jesus. 



38 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

Each of us must come for himself to a fixed, 
irreversible decision, as to which is reality, the 
wave or the word, and fasten ourselves to un- 
changeable truth. 

II. Another hindrance to faith is that of 
receiving honor of men. Jesus asks us, ''How 
can jQ believe which receive honor one of 
another, and seek not the honor that cometh 
from God only ? " It is not seeking honor of 
men, but receiving it ; that is, opening our 
heart to the cordial reception of human praise, 
or fiatteiy, or fame, that utterly contravenes 
the repose of the soul in God. Receiving honor 
from men is a great virtue in the eyes of the 
world, but this is an instance in which things 
highly esteemed among men are an abomination 
to the Lord. It may not be seen by all at the 
first glance, how^ receiving worldly honor can 
prevent true faith in God, but a little reflection 
will show us that receiving worldly honor is an 
insidious, subtle and malignant form of idol- 
atry. It has in it the element of man-fearing 
as well as man-worship. It is a subtle way of 
putting self in the place of God. It implies 
that our chief happiness comes from man, which 
is an ignoring of the true fountain of joy, and 
the hewing out of broken cisterns. This defer- 
ence to the creature, this fearing or cringing to 
man, this love of place and distinction for self. 



HINDRANCES TO FAITH. 39 

severs the soul from Christ, diverts its trust to 
come other object and destroys true faith. 

III. Another hindrance to faith is the low state 
of faith in those around us^ and especially the un- 
belief of those occupying high places in the visible 
Church. In the days of Jesus it was asked, 
"Have any of the rulers believed on Him?" 
The great mass of nominal Christians are in such 
an infantile state of grace, as to lack the inde- 
pendence to launch out boldly and alone, and 
trust God radically and bravely, in spite of the 
coldness and half-heartedness of those in relig- 
ious authority over them. How often it occurs 
in every age, that those who are set to guide the 
affairs of the Church, and its education and 
economy, have no warm, living faith in God, 
beyond a gross rationalistic faith in their ecclesi- 
astical system, who, like Bonaparte,put their fiith 
on the side of the heaviest battalions. It is a 
historical fact that faith kindles faith, fervent 
holiness inspires others to pursue it. Saints mul- 
tiply in great revivals of religion. In the world 
of letters, great authors rise in clusters, the 
same thing is true of inventors, and there have 
been epochs in Church history where saints rose 
in constellations. We need to be incited by 
those of faith, but let us beware of toning down 
our trust to the level of the half believers and 
doubters that swarm around us. 



40 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWE^. 

IV. Perhaps the greatest hindrance to faith 
is a lack of personal consecration to God. We 
are taught this in the twelfth of Hebrews, 
where, in order to look to Jesus as the " begin- 
ner and perfecter of our faith," we are to lay- 
aside every weight and the easily besetting sin. 
Just as long as there is defect in our consecra- 
tion, there will be corresponding defects in our 
faith. We can trust God only to the extent 
that we are given up to Him. Your risk in a 
bank is up to the limit of your deposit. Con- 
secration puts us right on believing ground. 
Consecration is cutting the shore lines, and 
faith is launching out into the deep. So the 
real question is, not why should I trust all to 
God, bat why should I doubt anything of Him? 
Have His promises ever broken down ? has He 
ever disappointed or deceived us ? True, He 
often tests our faith, but at the last moment, in 
the worst extremity. His train of infinite mercy 
and provision has arrived on schedule time, and 
the finale in many a psalm of life has been, 
" Blessed are all they that put their trust in 
Him." 



CHAPTER IX. 

"FAINT not/' 

THERE is an experience of soul exactly like 
the fainting of the body. When a person 
faints there is an utter loss of strength accom- 
panied with a real sickish feeling, paleness and 
a clammy sweat, causing the body to get 
limp, beyond the control of the will, and fall 
away in an unconscious swoon. There is a 
real fainting of the soul which we are admon- 
ished against in the Word, ''My son, despise 
not the chastening of the Lord nor faint when 
thou art rebuked of Him." "We have this 
treasure in earthen vessels, for which cause we 
faint not." " Faint, yet pursuing." 

Some of the feelings which may lead the 
Christian heart to faint are the following : 

A feeling of loneliness of soul, as if we were 
isolated from all other spirits, and especially 
shut off from the souls that are around us. We 
seem to be a castaway on some ethereal and 
desert island, with all intelligible communica- 
tion with other souls cut off. We sometimes 

(41) 



42 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

think we would like to open all our inner feel- 
ings to a fellow-spirit, but if the opportunity 
occurs to do so, an invisible yet powerful check 
is laid upon us. We seem to be more in fellow- 
ship with the souls of far-distant ages than with 
those near by. We seem to pace the boundless 
shore of our solitary island, waiting for any 
sort of a change to break upon our experience, 
until we feel like sinking down under sheer 
sameness and monotone of soul. 

Another feeling is that of being caged in, 
hampered and tied in an inextricable manner. 
Providence seems to go off and leave us to the 
heartlessness of a thousand petty demons who 
pervade every little circumstance ; who seem, 
like the fabled Liliputians, to tie our hands and 
feet wliile we sleep ; who snap all the threads 
in our financial looms ; who upset our ordinary 
plans; who turn anticipated joj^s into ashes; 
who bother us with a host of mental perplexities 
too subtle to define and too numerous to count. 
There are times when a current of such things 
seems to set in ; times when everything seems 
to weave itself into a network of crippling 
environment, and any effort to extricate our- 
selves only bruises us. At such times the 
question is shot into the mind, ''What's the 
use?" 

Another feeling is that of a strange pressure 



''FAINT NOT.'' 43 

and a heavy bearing down in the soul, it seems 
we cannot get low enough to slip out from 
under the weight ; the floor or ground is entirely 
too high for us. 

Another feeling is that of paralysis. The 
faculties seem benumbed and unable to exert 
themselves. Praj^er is not versatile and fluent, 
but is reduced to a heart groan or the simple 
cry of tlie woman in the gospel, '' Lord, help 
me." This inertia of the faculties is accom- 
panied with a sense of weariness in the soul ; 
the Holy Spirit recognizes this state of experi- 
ence and distinctly mentions this heart tired- 
ness, '' Lest ye be weary and faint in your 
minds." The Spirit has given us three remedies 
to prevent soul-fainting : 

One remedy is, " Consider Him who endured 
. . . lest ye be weary and faint." When 
prayer is inert, when every pinion of heart and 
mind is bound, we are to quietly fix our con- 
sideration on Him who endured; spread out 
before the mind how He was cramped, limited, 
contradicted ; His inner feelings fettered and 
smitten in a thousand inconcievable ways ; how 
the normal yearnings of His heart were denied 
and snubbed; how the whole of His outward 
environment was at such horrible disagreement 
with the fitness of things in His soul ; to con- 
sider all this, and much more which will occur 



44 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

to a meditative soul, will bring a sense of 
fellowship with Him which is excellent medicine 
for faintness of spirit. 

Another remedy is, '' Despise not thou the 
chastening of the Lord." God arranges, or 
permits, for our chastening to come to us in 
such strange and unlooked-for ways, in such 
mortifying and disagreeable circumstances, by 
such undignified and outlandish agencies that 
we are apt to ''despise the chastening." 

We think we could take the scourging much 
better if it were applied with a more dignified 
and beautiful whip. Our chastisement often 
occurs by things in which we see no semblance 
of divinity. The trials, the besetments, the 
persons, the events, the gnarled and knotty 
annoyances, which God employs to correct or 
rebuke us, seem often so low and mean and out 
of harmony with the fitness of things that we 
are liable to despise the correction. Now, if 
we can discover the liand of God in all these 
ugly things, if we can see the divine presence 
under all this network of unpleasantness, it 
will at once throw a new light on them, and 
the recognition of His presence will keep us 
from fainting. '' Despise not the chastening of 
the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked by 
Him." 

Another remedy for soul-fainting is the mani- 



*' FAINT Norr 45 

festation of Jesus to the inner spirit. Paul 
tells us in second Corinthians, fourth chapter, 
that God hath shined in our hearts to give us 
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God 
in the face of Jesus Christ, and says this mani- 
festation is a treasure which we have in earthen 
vessels, then, after alluding to our peculiar 
sufferings, concludes by saying, ^' For which 
cause we faint not." So the best cure for 
heart-fainting is the blessedness of Jesus re- 
vealed in us by the Holy Ghost. The clear, 
deep apprehension of Jesus as a personal, 
sympathizing, indwelling Saviour is a soul 
tonic, an invigorating balm to the spirit which 
nothing else can be. 



CHAPTER X. 

AFFLICTION AND GLORY. 

^^ COR our light affliction, which is but for a 
1 moment, worketh for us a far more 
exceeding and eternal weight of glory ; 

" While we look not at the things which are 
seen, but at the things which are not seen ; for 
the things which are seen are temporal ; but the 
things which are not seen are eternal." 2 Cor. 
4: 17,18. 

The two pivot words in this Scripture are 
working and looking. The affliction worketh 
glory, while the believer looketh at the unseen. 

The term " worketh " covers the domain of 
the Holy Spirit's office, and the term " looketh " 
covers the domain of the believer's activity. 
The truth taught in the verses is that of a 
marvelous transmutation of pain into pleasure, 
of hardship into happiness, of tribulation into 
transport. It is an inconceivable wonder of 
divine chemistry in which affliction, time, tlie 
unbelieving soul and the Holy Spirit are factors. 
Elsewhere Paul tells us that he '' reckoned the 

(46) 



AFFLICTION AND GLORY. 47 

sufferings of this present time not worthy to be 
compared with the glory that shall be in us." 
It were as if by the light of eternity he had 
weighed and measured the elements of suffering 
and glory and reached a mathematical conclu- 
sion. But this could only be by taking into 
his comprehensive grasp the entire destiny of 
the Christian. Had he confined his calcula- 
tions to a small section of human existence, the 
result would have been far different. God sees 
all things, even the smallest, in the light of 
their true and eternal relations, and it was in 
that light that Paul surveyed the interests of 
mankind and especially those of the Christian ; 
not with reference to a brief period in their 
existence, but swept with eagle eye the entire 
annals of their destiny. This is the only light 
in which 'we can perceive the equality and 
justice of God's ways, or by which we can 
interpret the dark and contradictory problems 
of life. 

We can never see the full harmony and pro- 
portion of parts in any subject of observation 
without taking in the whole, and studying the 
I'elation of each part to the whole. When this 
life is cut off from the future, everything in it 
is utterly unexplainable. You may select a few of 
the finest notes in some majestic anthem, and if 
they are sounded alone and apart from the 



48 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

whole, they would lose all their melody and 
charm. Each note alone as a monotone is 
unmusical, but when they all glide togetlier in 
round billows of music they roll and break with 
strange rapture upon our ears. The inequal- 
ities of the earth's surface, the elevations and 
depressions, if viewed only with reference to 
small sections, seem out of all proportion, but 
could we station ourselves at a sufficient dis- 
tance from the earth and see its whole circum- 
ference pass in review before us, then every 
local inequality would be so related to the 
whole as to render them constituents of har- 
mony and perfection. In like manner, we do 
not live long enougli to catch the full anthem 
of God's administration. His providence strikes 
a few notes in our ears during our short lives, 
but from these we cannot gather '' the full 
diapason thunder roll," the completion of which 
fills the flight of ages. And the inequalities of 
human fortune, " the good man's tears, the 
pangs of despised love, the law's delays, the 
insolence of office, the scorn which patient merit 
bears," compose a moral landscape in life like 
Alps and deserts out of all proportion, until 
human destiny is surveyed in its entire orbit 
with its far-reaching circumference of im- 
mortality. 

The spiritual chemistry suggested in the text 



AFFLICTlOJ^r AND GLOUY. 49 

is well worth analysis. It would seem that 
everything depends on the moral quality of the 
soul and its attitude toward the unseen. If the 
believer is holy, if his nature is in harmony with 
the Holy Spirit, if he habitually looks to the 
things of eternity, then whatever of suffering 
enters into his life is transmuted by the moral 
quality of his heart into the gold of glory. 
Just as the oak converts all chemistry into oak 
by the peculiar quality of its oak life, so the 
pure in heart, he that lives the Christ life, will 
from the dark chemistry of this world — its 
disappointments and suffering — turn all things 
into glory and praise. 

There are three contrasts in the text, that 
between affliction and glory, that between the 
terms light and weight, and that between 
momentary and eternal ; and between these 
opposites is the soul of the believer. The first 
opposites are affliction and glory. This refers 
to that particular kind of glory which belongs 
to each individual Christian which St. Paul 
elsewhere calls the '' glory to be revealed in us," 
and which is not transferable to anyone else. 
Though there is such a contrast between afflic- 
tion and glory, yet when you place a trusting, 
obedient Christian soul between them, such a 
soul becomes a divine laboratory through which 
this working process goes on, and under the 



50 THiS SEGHEf OF SPIRITUAL POWEtt. 

touch of the Almighty Spirit of God, cooperat- 
ing with man's obedience and love, the sourest 
acid of affliction is transmuted into the sweetest 
fruit of glory. There seems no intimate rela- 
tion between prussic acid and a ripe peach, but 
if you interpose the roots and trunk of a vital 
healthy peach tree between them, that deadliest 
of poisons in passing through the arteries and 
life of the tree is transformed into one of the 
most luscious of fruits. So that it is not the 
affliction in itself that constitutes the glory, but 
it is the affliction working itself through a 
regenerated and purified soul, otherwise it would 
remain a deadly poison, " for the sorrow of the 
world worketh death." Affliction can work out 
glory in the soul by bringing it into most 
thorough acquiescence to the divine will and 
purpose. While it cannot purify the soul it 
can bring the soul into such submission to the 
divine will, that the whole purpose of God's 
saving ^remedy can pass unobstructed through 
the heart. 

We go through tribulation, but moral white- 
ness is by the blood of the Lamb. We are, and 
through eternity must remain, under the 
sovereign will and wisdom of God, but that 
authority over us will be a source of boundless 
fear and pain unless we are in agreement with 
it. This alone will fit us as subjects for such a 



AFFLICTION AND GLORY. 51 

kingdom, for tlie issues and employments of 
immortality. This great lesson cannot be 
learned amid an unbroken flow of mild indul- 
gence. If divine providence should never cross 
the path of our earthly happiness, our faith and 
lo3^alty would have no test, we would not come 
in direct contact with divine authority. It is 
affliction that makes the hand of God, as it were, 
tangible to the soul, it is then that we touch 
the sceptre of the Almighty. 

Again, affliction may work glory in the soul 
by enlarging its capacities. The capacity of 
suffering and enjoyment must be equal and that 
species of joy which comes out of suffering is 
in the nature of thiiigs doubled. The glory of 
any being is in proportion to the greatness of 
its capabilities to the volume and variety of 
experiences which it can contain. Therefore, 
whatever enlarges our conformity to the cross 
of Christ, to His diversified self-abnegation, to 
His patient suffering, must increase possibilities 
of enjoyment with. Him. In the afflictions 
incident to a true Christian arising from such 
multiplied and sometimes opposite sources, 
there is a strain upon the mind, a stress of long- 
ing, a hot tension of feeling, a surging of sensi- 
bility, an upheaving of the under-ocean of the 
soul which causes the waters of life to swell 
beyond their foimer shores, and imparts to it 



52 THE 3ECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWEtt. 

such keenness of taste, such relish for the 
highest and best, as qualifies it to more fully 
appreciate the joys that are divine. 

Again, affliction works glory by widening the 
circle of knowledge and fellowship with the 
moral universe, by giving us a similarity and 
acquaintance with the great and good of all 
ages. If our religious life should be an unin- 
terrupted season of summer days, it would 
debar us from knowing a large portion of the 
moral experiences of the world ; it would 
exclude us from the inner and sublime fellow- 
ship of the martyrs and the white-robed com- 
pany who have gone up through great tribulation. 
Affliction is the alphabet through which we 
read large portions of revelation ; it is the clew 
by which we interpret the shaded love of the 
oppressed, the persecuted and heroic of all 
time ; the sheepskin brigade of whom the world 
was not worthy ; it furnishes a passport to the 
internal solitudes of the man of sorrows, and 
unveils the mysterious anguish of the man of 
Uz. Thus, by extending the circle of fellow- 
ship with the great and good, by sinking us 
into deeper union with the divine will, by test- 
ing tlie principles of love and obedience, by 
curbing our impetuosity, by chastening our 
judgment, hj melting to a warmer temperature 
the feelings of the heart, by enlarging the 



AFFLICTION AND GLORY, 53 

sweep of our sympathies, affliction can be made 
to throw over our whole character a softer and 
brighter luster than it were possible otherwise 
to obtain. These are a few instances by which 
affliction may work out in a Christian an im- 
perishable glory, a glory which is rooted and 
grounded in the character, a glory which 
sprouts, blooms and fruits from the torn and 
ploughed soil of the soul, a glory which being 
planted in your own nature, warmed by your 
own prayers, and watered with your own tears, 
can never be taken from you, but an inherent 
internal product of glory, beauty and honor, 
beaming with perennial loveliness upon your 
x)wn character and fitted to adorn the paradise 
of God. 



CHAPTER XI. 

AFFLICTION AND GLORY. 

THE next contrast is between the words 
''light " and ''weight." When the apos- 
tle characterized the afflictions of the Christian 
as light, it was not because He looked upon 
them with a stoical spirit, or failed to measure 
either their intensity or dimension, for, like his 
Master, in his life he had accented nearly every 
syllable in the volume of affliction. But he 
pronounced them light, because from the stand- 
point of inspired reason and as related to im- 
mortality, they are light. They are light be- 
cause they spring from the lower and earthly 
side of our existence. The afflictions of a true 
Christian cannot spring from the wrath of God, 
nor the dreadful forebodings of judgment. 

The nature of these afflictions is referred to 
in the words "perplexed but not in despair, 
persecuted but not destroyed, cast down but not 
forsaken," they are located outside of the 
spiritual life; they may arise from the mind or 
the body, from some thorn in the flesh, from 

(54) 



AFFLICTION AND GLORY. 55 

our social environments, or from the state of 
our earthly fortunes. If we take the catalogue 
of all possible affliction, the loss of health, the 
pinch of poverty, the tongue of slander, the 
desolation of bereavement, the eclipse of rea- 
son, the dungeon of imprisonment, the red 
torch of persecution and death itself, they are 
all on the outer, earthly side of the soul. They 
cannot penetrate the inner citadel of the spirit, 
nor break the union of a perfectly loyal heart 
with its God. But the glory on the other hand 
fills the upper and moral nature, and in heaven 
will fill the whole outward life as well. So 
that while earthly affliction can invade only a 
portion of our life and being, the glory that is 
to be wrought out in us will envelope the whole 
being and leave no space for pain or want. 
Furthermore," the afflictions of the Christian 
are light because they are always blended with 
so many opposite and alleviating elements. 

The particles of anguish do not come so close 
together as to form a solid, but are mixed and 
diluted with much that soothes and medicates. 
So much of art is exerted to alleviate our ills, 
so many streams of sympathy are poured into 
even the darkest waters of life, and the princi- 
ple of hope will ever light its lamp in the dark- 
est passages, that whatever combination of ills 
we suffer, they are not absolutely unmixed. 



56 TffH SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

Now, in contrast with these afflictions which are 
neutralized, the glory will be unmixed and 
undiluted with any opposite. We say of a 
sponge that it is light because its particles are 
so widely separated as to admit of much air and 
water. In contrast with the sponge, a block of 
pure gold of the same size would be very 
weighty. The afflictions of the Christian are 
like the nature of the sponge, which will admit 
opposite elements, while the glory will be like 
the nature of solid gold, the particles of un- 
mixed bliss, the atoms of light and love, will 
be so compressed into every part of our being 
and every moment of our duration as to form 
the nature of a solid. It will be a glory of 
such magnitude and splendor that our present 
senses and faculties could not endure, a weight 
of glorj^ like that of the orchard bending under 
its load of ripened fruit. 

The third contrast is between " momentary " 
and " eternal," the affliction is momentary, the 
glory is eternal. Life itself is only a moment 
to eternity ; yet it is only a small portion of 
the average Christian life that is subjected to 
affliction. If our life extended to antediluvian 
longevity, and the whole of it was a scene of 
affliction, still it Avould dwindle to a twinkling 
moment in the mighty roll of innumerable 
ages. And when we turn our contemplation 



AFFLICTION AND GLORY, 57 

from the brevity of affliction to the unending 
nature of the glory, we find our faculties over- 
whelmed by the majesty of eternity. Here the 
feeblest and most towering imaginations are 
on a level, for they both equally fail to compre- 
hend it. We cannot even approximate it for 
when we have, in fancy, borne ourselves for- 
ward on the stream of ages through millions of 
years, it still stretches away as vast as ever, the 
one solitary, shoreless, fathomless eternity. It 
is this infinite disparity between the duration of 
present affliction and future glory which makes 
it so marvelous to us. Is it not a stroke of 
infinite wisdom to so adjust the moral forces in 
a Christian soul as to cause such endless results 
to flow from such a momentary season of suffer- 
ing? Every reflective mind must be startled 
at the disproportion which there is between the 
brief season of probation and the everlasting 
results of it. We wonder that such a short 
space of toil can be followed by such a length 
of repose, that the littleness of the field can 
yield such an extended harvest, and that a few 
moments of affliction can work out such ever- 
lasting glory. 

If the glory spoken of in the text was ac- 
quired as wages for w^ork done, there would 
have to be some due proportion of time between 
the work and the wages, and it often happens 



AFFLICTION AND GLORY, 69 

under the dominion of the Holy Spirit, will 
lend a gravity to tlie moral character, cause it 
to approach nearer to Christ, and set in revolu- 
tion a new order of thoughts and feelings, 
which will dilate and stretch through the end- 
less cycles of immortality. But let us remem- 
ber that affliction can work out these glorious 
results, only while, in the attitude of perfect 
heart loyalty to Jesus, we habitually look at the 
things which are not seen. When we weep, it 
is by looking through our tears to that hand 
which will wipe all tears from our eyes that 
they will be turned into pearls of joy. 



oS THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

in this world that the period of labor is more 
extended than the period of reward, for thou- 
sands of men will struggle for half a century 
for the brief reward of five or ten years in some 
splendid office. The economy of infinite mercy 
is just the opposite. Our afflictions, then, do not 
partake of the nature of toil, with glory for its 
wages, but they are, under the operation of the 
Holy Ghost, in the nature of a cause working 
within us the lasting effect of glory. While 
there is no proportion between a moment's work 
and an eternity of wages, there is some propor- 
tion between a momentary cause and an ever- 
lasting effect. Should God create a single 
mountain and attach it to the surface of our 
globe, it would be a very light and trivial bur- 
den for the world to carry, like the addition of 
a tiny feather to a soaring eagle, which it could 
not perceive. And yet the addition of that 
mountain would most certainly increase the 
bulk and gravity of our planet, it would likely 
cause it to verge nearer the sun, it would effect 
the speed of its revolution, it would gradually 
change the motions of our solar system, and in 
the long lapse of years it would send a gradual 
change of motion through the innumerable orbs 
of creation. In like manner, an affliction which 
is light in its nature and momentary in its dura- 
tion, resting on an obedient, trusting soul, 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE ZONE OF ENTIRE CONSECRATION. 

ENTIRE consecration is misunderstood by 
many who place it at one of two extremes. 
Some put it down with repentance and make it 
an element in repentance, or taking place at the 
same time. Others place it up with sanctifica- 
tion and identify it with the work of cleansing. 
The true zone of entire consecration lies be- 
tween these two extremes. Entire consecration 
viewed Scripturally and experimentally comes 
after repentance and can be performed only by 
a living subject of grace, and on the other hand 
it precedes the work of purification, and pre- 
pares the way for that experience. Let us 
notice wherein consecration differs from re- 
pentance. Repentance has reference to our 
relation to sin and punishment; entire conse- 
cration has reference to our relation to the will 
and service of God. Repentance is the renun- 
ciation of all our sins, evil associations, ungodly 
alliances, unholy pursuits and business. 

Entire consecration is just the opposite of 

(60) 



THE ZONE OF ENTIRE CONSECRATION. 61 

this, it is the cordial yielding up of all our good 
things, our affections, our loved ones, our 
possessions, our reputation, our legitimate plans, 
purposes and prospects, our free will, our very 
life and destiny to the perfect will of God, 
subject to His disposal at all times. The first 
is giving up the bad things, the second is giving 
up the good things. If I may so speak, in 
repentance we let Satan take what belongs to 
him, and in consecration we let God take what 
belongs to Him. Again, the motive to repent- 
ance is to escape punishment, to flee from the 
wrath to come ; the motive that prompts entire 
consecration is a longing for a better experience, 
a desire to be like Jesus. Consecration is of 
the nature of making a will, of giving ourselves 
up a free-will offering to God, of making a 
quitclaim deed of ourselves and all our effects. 
But in order to execute such a will or deed, we 
must be citizens of the heavenly kingdom. 
Under our civil laws, a man who is under sen- 
tence of death, be he ever so rich, cannot make 
a will, or deed away a piece of property, for in 
the eye of the law he is dead. In like manner 
all impenitent sinners are condemned already, 
they are under the death sentence, and only 
awaiting the execution. Hence, they cannot 
make a free-will offering of themselves to God, 
or deed themselves away to Christ in the true 



62 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

sense of Scriptural consecration, until they are 
pardoned and restored to heavenly citizenship. 
So the Scriptures speak of offering ourselves 
'^ a living sacrifice," and of '^ yielding ourselves 
unto God as those which are alive from the 
dead." The same thought is illustrated by 
joining the arni}^. A soldier in joining the 
army virtually offers himself up to die, he is a 
living sacrifice on the altar of his country, but 
it is only an uncondemned citizen who can thus 
offer himself. 

No foreigner or unnaturalized person can join 
the army. Citizenship must precede soldier- 
ship. Such is true in grace, we must first be 
adopted and become citizens in the kingdom of 
grace before we can enter the true soldier 
covenant, and offer ourselves up to die for the 
King. It takes a good deal of grace in the 
heart to carry us through the act of entire 
abandonment to God. Entire consecration in- 
volves such a dying out of self, such a detailed 
yielding to the Lord, that no cold, formal 
Christian, no backslider in heart can do it. 
Only the subject of true saving grace can go 
through with it. So we see entire consecration 
is beyond repentance, and, in many things, 
quite different from it. 

Now, let us notice the difference between 
consecration and purification. Consecration is 



THE ZONE OF ENTIRE CONSECRATION. 63 

our work, purification is the Lord's work. 
When we want our watches cleaned and oiled, 
we take them to a jeweler, and leave them with 
him, lie cleanses them and rectifies their 
machinery. Our hearts are our watches, we 
commit them unlimitedly to Jesus ; He, by His 
Spirit, cleanses them and rectifies their move- 
ments. Many persons are prejudiced against 
the word sanctification, and habitually use the 
word consecration as a synonym of sanctifica- 
tion. This is putting the word too high. There 
is a subtle reason for this, the unsanctified mind 
instinctively magnifies the human side. 

You will notice that all persons who are not 
deeply spiritual will, without knowing it, ignore 
or minify the supernatural in religion ; their 
eye is not on God half as much as it is on self, 
consequently they dwell almost exclusively on 
the human side of religion, upon the struggles, 
the trying, the doing of the creature. And 
because consecration is the act of the creature, 
it is magnified as the climax of religion; 
whereas, in reality, it is but " making straight 
paths for our feet," leveling the mountains, 
''gathering out the stones," "preparing the way 
of the Lord," opening up the avenue for the 
sanctifying Spirit to enter in. Li saying that 
entire consecration is the act of the creature, it 
is understood that we can only do it through 



64 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

the help of the Holy Ghost, for every step in 
grace from repentance onward, is taken through 
the assistance of the Spirit of God. Consecra- 
tion begins in the spirit of adoption, and it is 
completed just before the divine act of purifi- 
cation. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE ENTIRETY IN CONSECRATION. 

ALL believers are, in a measure, consecrated 
to God, just as all believers are, in a 
measure, sanctified. The spirit of consecration 
is a part of the new life imparted to the soul 
in regeneration ; but in order to receive the 
full baptism of the Spirit, the principle of con- 
secration must be carried to completeness. Just 
as long as consecration is defective on any 
point, or in any degree, the experience of com- 
plete cleansing and filling cannot be received. 
The fullness of salvation is conditioned on 
perfect trust in Jesus as a present Saviour, and 
on the other hand this perfect truth is condi- 
tioned on the perfect yielding of self up to 
(xod. Hence, if there is any defect or shortage 
in consecration, it most surely blocks the way 
to the entrance into full salvation. Every 
believer is consecrated, but not all in equal de- 
grees. Some converted people, who are not 
fully sanctified, are much more yielding to God 
than others are, and have only a few more steps 

(65) 



06 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

to take in order to reach the state of entire 
abandonment, whereas others are so slightly 
yielded, as to be a long way from it. Again, 
all believers are not equally yielded on tliesame 
points. Some will more readily jdeld on cer- 
tain points than others. There are always one 
or two points which are the last to be yielded, 
and upon which the self life has a death 
struggle ; but these points of death struggle are 
very different with different souls. 

The three great lines of consecration are, to 
be anything the Lord wants us to he ; to do 
anything the Lord wants us to do ; to suffer 
anything the Lord wants us to suffer. These 
embrace the subjective, the active and the pas- 
sive forms of our existence, and to consent to 
all these three things, willingly, without a res- 
ervation, is the perfection of consecration. As 
each soul passes through these three things, 
there will come up a panorama of possibilities 
and contingencies according to each one's con- 
dition, nature, or environment, upon which the 
principle of loyalty will be tested. Some will 
find their complete yielding the hardest on the 
willing to be^ others, on the willing to do^ and 
others, on the willing to suffer. Unless conse- 
cration reaches the point of entirety, the soul 
will slip back and be consecrating itself over 
and over again a thousand times, without 



THE ENTIRETY IN CONSECRATION 67 

gaining a distinct step of victory, or making 
any positive progress. We hear a great deal 
about reconsecrating ourselves, and making a 
fresh consecration, which is mere delusive talk, 
and does not get the soul where positive results 
are brought to pass. When the soul is per- 
fectly yielded to God on every point, and for 
all time and eternity as well, it can drive a 
stake down, and hold its position. It has then 
got to the end of making good resolutions, it is 
then done with going over the same ground of 
giving up, it has reached the place of anchorage, 
it can then truly say, 

'"Tis done, the great transaction's done, 
I am my Lord's, and He is mine." 

A good illustration of entire consecration is 
that of tapping the car wheels. Many a time 
as I have been traveling on a sleeping car, I 
have been awakened in the night by the ham- 
mer of the wheel tester. At some principal 
station, where the engines are exchanged a man 
will pass along the train with a flaming torch 
in one hand, and a hammer in the other ; 
with the light he first examines the wheels and 
axles under the cars, then with the hammer 
gives a sharp rap on the wheels. If there is a 
single crack, ever so small in a wheel, it will 
be indicated b}^ the defective ring. That crack 
in a single wheel will stop the progress of that 



68 THK SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

coach, it must be sent to the shop for repairs ; 
and when every wheel gives a clear ring it can 
be sent on its journey at express speed. So in 
seasons of revival, at camp meetings or conven- 
tions, or with many a soul in retired life, God 
comes to examine the inner wheels of our 
mortal being. With the torch of His Spirit He 
searches undei'neath, and the recesses of our 
hearts, the axle tree of our will, the wheels 
of our motives and propensities, and with the 
hammer of His Word He taps on every wheel. 
If there be a defect in our consecration, it will 
be indicated by a crack in some wheel which 
will fail to ring out clearly ''Thy will be done." 
This will stop the progress of the soul, the great 
master mechanic will order us into the repair 
shop of grace, and when every wheel in us re- 
sponds affirmatively to the stroke of His Word 
we are then sent on our journey to the celestial 
city on schedule time. 

Some may ask '' How can I know when my 
consecration is entire?" The best answer is, 
" You will know it." There is a tremendous 
inner sense of giving up, of letting go, of get- 
ting through with your trying, of cutting the 
last shore line. 

There is an inward feeling that you have 
rolled yourself over on the Lord, and instead 
of trying to give up, you find yourself looking 



THE ENTIRETY IN CONSECRATION. 69 

for something more to yield, and wondering at 
the littleness of what you have given. At the 
point where consecration is entire, perfect trust 
is spontaneous, easy and natural. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

EXCAVATION BEFORE EDIFICATION. 

THE great prerequisite of perfect love is tlie 
thorough emptying of the heart of every 
principle and disposition contrary to love. No 
one can love God with all the heart, while 
original sin remains, for the carnal mind resides 
in the heart, and it is evident that if a part of 
the heart or moral nature is taken up with evil, 
the entire heart cannot, at the same time, be in 
conformity to God's will. 

This seems a very simple and self-evident 
proposition, yet it is so difficult to convince the 
most of professing Christians of this truth when 
it comes to actual experience. I have observed 
the following things to be true : 

1. That a great many will agree to tlie 
doctrine of loving God with all the heart, and 
many profess to be doing it who are utterly 
averse to the doctrine of heart purity, and 
repudiate the idea of being sanctified. If such 
persons understood the true Scriptural meaning 
of loving God with all the heart they would 

(70) 



EXCAVATION BEFORE EDIFICATION^. 71 

know that such language implied the thorough 
purification of the heart from the carnal mind. 
There is so much loose and disjointed religious 
thinking abroad in the church, that hardly one 
in a hundred seems to have any definite Script- 
ural view of actual and original sin, of regener- 
ation, or heart purity, and kindred subjects. 
The whole of Bible doctrines seems thrown 
together in a sort of a theological hash, and it 
is common to hear people announcing and deny- 
ing the same truth in the same breath, affirming 
that they want to be whole-hearted Christians 
(which really means holiness-hearted) and in 
the next breath denying the very condition of 
purification by which whole-heartedness is 
reached. If a glass of water contains one grain 
of sand, it cannot be filled with water, for to be 
filled with water it must contain no other 
substance. 

2. I have observed that some teach the 
receiving of the full baptism of the Spirit, while 
atithe same time, strongly denying the destruc- 
tion of inward sin. But, according to the Word 
of God, the two things are utterly contrary to 
each other, and I have never in all my travels 
found or heard of a person actually receiving 
tlie baptism of the Spirit under such teaching. 

3. That the depth and perpetuity of religious 
experience is in proportion to the depth of heart 



72 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWEH. 

excavation. The higher the edifice, the deeper 
and broader must the foundation be. This 
principle is true everywhere in nature, mind 
and morals. If the great work of heart sancti- 
fication were a mere blessing, which so many 
think it to be, it would not require such a deep 
foundation. Many think the work of holiness, 
like a traveler's tent, which can be readily 
pitched without a foundation, whereas it is a 
great palace of inward life built to last through 
the ages, and must needs have a foundation 
broad and deep in the veiy bed-rock of our 
nature. I have heard that when the great Corn 
Exchange of New York was built, the expendi- 
ture upon the foundation was so immense that 
the contractor reckoned the building about half 
done when the basement story was finished. 
The greatest part of the work of full salvation 
is the digging av/ay the hindrance to God's 
grace out of our being. It is very easy for 
grace to fill a clean vessel. 

4. To be filled with the positive graces of 
the Spirit, is always a popular thought among 
religious people ; but to be crucified, emptied, 
cleansed in order to be so filled is exceedingly 
unpopular. If a reporter should go through 
the Christian churches reporting all the prayers 
offered, nearly all of them would be prayers to 
be filled and rarelv would there be one offered 



EXCAVATION BEFORE EDIFICATION. 73 

for complete cleansing from inward sin. Mr. 
Wesley found that the people readily accepted 
his preaching on being filled with faith, resigna- 
tion, hope, love, gentleness, good works and 
such; but when he expounded the necessity of 
being entirely cleansed from all sin in both 
root and branch, there was much outcry against 
his teaching. So it is now, and so it will ever 
be. Old Adam, the fallen nature, clings tena- 
ciously for a little space in our being. 

The story is told of an old Scotch lady, who 
thought that grieving over heart depravity was 
the highest possible state of grace, and is 
reported to have said, ''If you take away my 
original sin, you take away all my religion." 
As odd and contradictory as this may seem, yet 
multitudes of professing Christians seem to view 
it in that light. When we read the lives of 
eminent saints whose graces and toils and 
triumphs made them the chandeliers in the 
visible church, who seemed more like celestial 
visitants than the plodding mortals of our 
world, we crave to be flooded with the warm 
fervor of their hearts, the bold heroism of their 
testimony, the fervency and faith of their pray= 
ers, and the lustre of their dying triumphs. 
But are we willing to pay the price they paid, 
to go througli such crucifixions, to endure the 
self-denials, the heart emptyings, the fastings 



74 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

and wrestlings in prayer, which laid the founda- 
tions of their loveliness and were the stepping- 
stones to their heavenly greatness? 

If we want Pentecostal power we must pay 
Pentecostal prices. To be filled with convert- 
ing grace we must pay the price of giving up all 
our actual sins. To be filled with pure love, we 
must pay the '' upper room " price, of giving up 
our whole being, life and destiny to the will of 
God. The deeper we die the deeper we live. 
The lower we excavate the higher we build. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE KATURE OF PERFECT LOVE. 

THE misapprehension of the nature of perfect 
love is the basis of all the misunderstand- 
ings and false notions respecting it. There 
never has been a book written, or a sermon 
preached, against the experience of Christian 
perfection, that did not have for its starting 
point an erroneous and un-Scriptural view as to 
what it was. No one has yet been found to 
either antagonize or disbelieve the obtain ability 
of perfect love, who had a correct view of it. 

We have to say over again a thousand times, 
it is perfection of quality and not the 
perfection of quantitj^ or ripeness. Concerning 
the nature of perfect love we may notice : 

1. It is a perfection that applies to the 
heart, that is, to the moral, religious depart- 
ment of man's being. Man is a tripartite 
creature of body, soul and spirit. The body 
will never reach its perfection — that is, exemp- 
tion from all deformity, disease, pain, death, 
until it is resurrected and glorified. The soul, 

05) 



76 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

which is, properly speaking, the mind, embrac- 
ing the sensibilities and intellectual faculties 
and appetencies, will never be perfect, that is, 
delivered from all disproportion of faculties, 
from all mistakes of judgment and defective 
apprehension, until it enters the celestial state 
of being. But the heart, which is the true 
spiritual part of man, is that zone of his being 
in which character resides. The heart embraces 
the conscience, the affections and the will. 
The conscience to feel right and wrong, the 
affections to hate or love the right or the wrong, 
and the will to choose the right or the wrong. 
All of these things enter into the composition 
of responsible moral character wherever it is 
found. All through the Word of God, the 
heart is the real man, it is called the "inner 
man," it is the spring out of which flow the 
"issues of life," it is the "tree" that bears the 
fruit of action, it is the center and citadel of 
character. It is in this region of man where 
the great work of salvation takes place, convic- 
tion, regeneration, sanctification and the mani- 
festation of divine things. The heart uses the 
mind and the body as its instruments ; hence 
God says, " Give Me thy heart," knowing that 
if He can get full possession there He can, 
through the moral nature, govern the whole 
man. How easy it is for all the powers of Intel- 



THE NATURE OF PERFECT LOVE. 77 

lect and body to move with the current of the 
affections and do their bidding. The Bible 
invariably locates the principle of sin in the 
heart, and not in the body or intellectual fac- 
ulties ; but, strange to say, I have never found 
a person or a book antagonizing Christian per- 
fection, that did not locate the carnal mind 
either in the body or mental faculties. As the 
lieart is the lodging place of original sin, so in 
Scripture the cleansing power of Jesus is always 
directed there. Hence we read, "- Blessed are 
the pure in heart," " He that loveth pureness of 
heart," ''Purifying their hearts by faith," ''Purify 
your hearts ye double-minded," "Having our 
hearts sprinkled (that is, cleansed) from an evil 
conscience," "Love out of a pure heart," "Love 
with all thy heart," "Let your heart be perfect 
with the Lord," David said to Solomon, "Serve 
the Lord with a perfect heart and a willing 
mind," but he does not say perfect mind. Per- 
fection is predicted of the heart, but willingness, 
teachableness is required of the mind. 

2. The perfection of Christian love consists 
in its unmixedness or simplicity. A thing is 
. said to be simple when it is not mixed with 
other substances, as water is simple or pure 
when unmixed with other liquids or earth. 
Thus, we speak of pure gold, pure honey, etc., 
when these things exist in a cUrified sta-te. So 



78 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

when the love of God fills the purified heart, it 
is in a state of simplicity. There is humility 
without pride mixed with it; love toward God 
and man without any form of hatred ; there is 
submission without any subtle rebellion ; there 
is faith or trust without any scepticism or 
doubt ; there is grace without the admixture of 
depravity. Some one may ask, does God put 
mixed grace into a human heart ? No, never. 
But His grace, which is imparted in regenera- 
tion, is choked and impeded by our original de- 
pravity. So it is not divine grace that needs to 
be clarified but we ourselves, our hearts need 
to be entirely cleansed so that God's grace can 
exist in us in an unmixed clarified condition. 
I was once riding with a friend in a western 
city, on a bright September day. He wished 
me to explain the nature of perfect love. I 
said, "Do you see that sunshine? Is not this 
a perfect day? What hinders the sunshine from 
being perfect?" He said, "It would be perfect 
but for the smoke and dust from the city ! " 
"Exactly," I said, "but there is no dust and 
smoke in the sun, but that arises from the city 
and they get mixed, but not amalgamated. The 
sunshine remains sunshine and the smoke re- 
mains smoke, but they exist in the same atmos- 
phere. Now, if a heavy rain should cleanse 
the air from all impurity and then the bright 



THE NATURE OF PERFECT LOVE. 79 

sun should shine out, you would have the sun- 
shine filling the air without dust or smoke and 
that would be perfect sunshine. Now," I said, 
" When you were converted God put His love 
into your heart, but have you not had much 
dust and smoke in your experience?" ''Oh, 
yes ! " he said. ''But where did the dust and 
smoke come from ? " He answered, " Not from 
God, but from my own heart." ''Now," I said, 
"if you should have a Pentecostal thunder- 
storm to wash the dust and smoke out of your 
nature, then the same love that you received in 
regeneration could exist in a simple and un- 
mixed state within you." So that sanctification 
does not impart to us any new graces, but re- 
moves from us the antagonism to the graces, 
and, thus, all the graces imparted in regenera- 
tion can abide in a quiet, peaceful condition. 
God can make our hearts His quiet resting- 
place, when all the opposites to His will have 
been removed, just as Christian families can 
peacefully inhabit and cultivate the fertile 
plains of the West, when all the savages have 
been entirely removed to a distant part of the 
earth. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE EFFECTS OF PERFECT LOVE. 

PERHAPS the most effectual way of induc- 
ing Christians to seek perfect love, is to 
show the great benefits resulting from the expe- 
rience. This is what Mr. Wesley termed preach- 
ing perfection by promise, which he regarded as 
the most successful way of teaching it. Some 
may ask, What is the difference between the 
effects of love previous to, and after, full sanc- 
tification? The effects are the same in kind, 
but different in degree. Previous to the full 
baptism of love, the Christian graces are 
checked more or less by remaining carnality. 
There is a conscious limitation, impediment, 
embarrassment, timidity, shrinking, sluggishness 
and other forms of hindrance, which prevent the 
full, free, outflowing effects which would natur- 
ally spring from unmixed love. Christian per- 
fec'tion does not purify the graces, but purifies 
the soul-soil in which the graces grow. It is 
not another kind of religion, but the same kind 
we had before, with the internal hindrances 

(80) 



TBE EFFECTS OF PERFECT LOVE. 81 

removed, the same corn with the weeds ex- 
tracted, the same fire with the smoke consumed; 
it is a converted life made easy. We can easily 
see the effects of perfect love if we apply it to 
Christian duties. The believer has no more 
duties resting on him after his full purification 
than before, but there is a marvelous difference 
in the promptness, ease, liberty and regularity 
with which the duties are performed. Justifi- 
cation binds on us tlie same law of life that 
sanctification does. We see this illustrated in 
Scripture. All the duties and laws given to the 
children of Israel wei'e while they were in the 
wilderness, and yet over and over again, it is 
said, thus and thus '' shall ye do when you come 
into the land of promise," showing us that it 
was entering the land of promise which was to 
render the keeping of those laws practicable 
and easy. The same truth is repeated in the 
New Testament. Jesus imposed on his disci- 
ples every precept and duty before their full 
salvation on the day of Pentecost, but taught 
them that in order to the sure performance to 
all His commands, they were to " wait until 
they were endued with power from on high." 

The same truth is repeated in our experience. 
After we are converted, we feel upon our spirits 
the pressure of many calls and obligations. A 
new world and a new life is open before us, con- 



82 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

victions of privilege and duty often come to us, 
and we feel the need of an inward liberty and 
unction, and a bold, prompt movement to their 
performance. This is what the full baptism of 
love supplies. It lubricates all our moral ma- 
chinery, it oils the secret wheels of action, so 
that we speak, or pray, or write, or decide, or 
give, or forgive, with an alacrity, firmness and 
conscious joy we never did before. 

Justification says, '*• Search the Scriptures," 
but perfect love says, '' Thy Word is sweeter 
than honey and the honeycomb." The first 
says, " Forsake not the assembling of your- 
selves together," the second says, '' I was glad 
when they said unto me let us go into the 
house of the Lord." It often happens that the 
overflow of perfect love renders the ordinary 
duties of life a pure delight, as looking through 
the camera upon some ordinary scenery trans- 
forms it into a vista of beaut}^ We are not to 
hunt so much for new and extraordinary duties 
as we are for that pure fullness of love which 
adds a new zest to every old one. 

Another emphatic result of perfect love is 
tlie wonderful deliverance it imparts from the 
fear of man. It puts us where we can love 
everybody, but cringe to nobody, fear nobody. 
We are not afraid of the criticisms, or threat- 
eiiings, or the big majorities of our fellows. 



THE EFFECTS OF PERFECT LOVE, 83 

What an iufiiiite boon such an experience is in 
this time-serving, man-fearing world ! How 
many Christians there are, who, for lack of per- 
fect love, fail to speak out, or vote, or act, or 
take the stand which their silent convictions 
call them to. The Holy Spirit has well said 
that " the fear of man bringeth a snare." Sev- 
eral instances have occurred under my observa- 
tion, where ministers were timid about preach- 
ing full salvation, for fear of offending promi- 
nent hearers ; when those same prominent 
hearers were thirsting for heart purity, and 
welcomed a full gospel with delight. 

The fullness of love will also remove our 
fear of God's providence. So many Christians 
are distressed for fear God's providence will 
fail them. One is always afraid he will go to 
the poorhouse. Another is afraid to give his 
tithes to God lest he should never get them 
back. Another is afraid of sudden death. 
Another is afraid of certain forms of disease. 
Another is afraid of some imaginary calamity 
to his family. Until trust in God is complete, 
some imaginary lion puts the heart into a flutter 
of dismay. Perfect love clarifies the Adsion to 
discern the completeness of God's special provi- 
dence. It makes the form of the fourth mov- 
ing amid the fiery ordeals of life a positive 
reality. It is not a spirit of rashness, but an 



84 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWEH, 

obedient doing of our best, and then resting all 
results on the bosom of God's care. It is not 
claiming that He will always do as we ask or 
plan, but it is a sweet repose in His wisdom and 
love that He will do the best for us. Perfect 
love destroys the fear of death. It enables the 
soul to see death in the true Scriptural light, 
and not only so, but to see through death in 
such a way that heaven is a reality. Love con- 
quers all things, even death. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SUPERFICIAL RELIGIOUS LIFE. 

THERE is a wonderful propensity in fallen 
human nature to be superficial. Tiiis dispo- 
sition is manifest in every form of life-work and 
character. It is stimulated in every branch of life 
by an inordinate desire for speedy results and 
external show, instead of abiding reality. 
Thoroughness is a fruit of industry, but sin has 
so paralyzed man's nature as to produce idleness 
and inertia. While this statement will apply 
to every branch of life and achievement, yet it 
is pre-eminently true in the matter of religion. 
The religion of the Bible deals with the deepest 
part of our nature, the conscience, the will and 
heart. It deals with realities of the unseen and 
eternal world, it involves the profoundest facts, 
truths and experiences in the universe. In the 
very nature of things it is the most real and 
enduring fact in the creation, compared to 
which all other interests in time are as morning 
mists. If mere surface work is destructive in 
other, branches of life, then anything that 

(85) 



86 THE SECRET OF SPt RITUAL POWER. 

resembles superficiality in religion is fatal and 
ruinous in the extreme. And yet in this work 
of personal salvation, where we need the utmost 
thoroughness and reality, is where the great 
majority are flattering their souls that a shallow 
and ordinary work is sufficient. Instead of 
seeking how well w^e can be prepared for eter- 
nity, how holy can I be, how much of the love 
of God can I possess and manifest, the secret 
whisper of many hearts is. How little may 1 
lean on for safety? Untold thousands have 
"healed their hurt slightly, saying, peace, peace, 
when there was no peace " (Jer. 8 : 11). We 
sometimes hear the expression, '' If I can just 
barely get into heaven, I shall be satisfied." 
But such an expression reveals something ter- 
ribly sad in the heart. It shows unbelief in the 
promises ; it shows a lack of earnestness and 
thoroughness, in other words, it manifests the 
presence of the carnal mind. All such half- 
hearted expressions from the mouth, spring 
from a half-heartedness within. One cause for 
so much superficiality in religion conies from 
regarding the mere external actions of life more 
than the inward state of the heart. In the 
Word of God we find that all conduct and 
action is traced back to the state of the heart, 
and reduced to its true character. Every act is 
measured by the character of the fountain far 



SUPERFICIAL RELIGIOUS LIFE, 87 

more than the outward appearance of the act. 
True religion has, as vehicles, such things as 
doctrines, the church, the ministry, ordinances, 
duties, vows, but all these put together do not 
make religion, that is something that is a life, a 
warm, real, conscious life in the soul, it is behind 
action and produces it ; it is superior to duty, 
for it imposes duty, and, larger than ordi- 
nances, for it creates them. 

Human beings look only at the external. 
They are disposed to think that there is no sin 
except in the outward act, overlooking the fact 
of the " body of sin " in the soul ; they also look 
upon goodness merely in the outward act, con- 
sisting of certain church duties and not in the 
conscious, thorough loving of God and loving our 
neighbor. This is why there are so many Cath- 
olics, high churchmen, ecclesiastical zealots, 
formalists and moralists in the world who have 
no salvation. 

Another reason for superficial religion is in 
not viewing it in its spiritual and immortal 
nature, but looking at it as a temporal and 
earthly advantage. Failing to look at salvation 
in its great spiritual and eternal nature, pro- 
duces an infinite amount of vacillation and 
inconstancy in pursuing it. It is true that the 
life of Christ in the heart, has its incalculable 
advantages in this life. There is not a single 



88 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWEtt. 

good thing or blessing or advantage connected 
with the body, the intellect, the domestic life, 
civil government, business, commerce, educa- 
tion, science, discovery, or any form of earthly 
well-being, which is not purified, elevated, 
strengthened and adorned by the life of Christ 
in the soul. These are legitimate effects of 
salvation, but Christ did not institute His 
religion for the purpose of producing these 
temporal advantages. The true sphere of 
religion is in the spiritual nature and its true end 
is eternal well being. Time is too short and 
earth is too narrow for the religion of Jesus to 
fully reveal itself. It scatters innumerable 
blessings in its flight through time, but its true 
destiny is eternal communion with God ; and to 
judge of it by a few temporal and physical 
things is to utterly misunderstand it. 

So many half-hearted seekers after God, 
expect religion to bring them ease, comfort, 
wealth, friends, honor, office or some other 
emolument from a temporal standpoint ; and if 
it fails they peevishly doubt its true power. 
Tliis is why so few ministers and Christian 
people can enter full sanctification ; they cannot 
relinquish the preferment, the friendships, the 
temporal advantages, which they suppose belong 
to religion. Could they see the salvation of 
God in its purely spiritual and eternal nature, 



SUPERFICIAL RELIGIOUS LIFE, 89 

they would gladly count all things loss for its 
excellency. 

A miniature rainbow may be found in a dew 
drop, but what is that compared to the full 
sized flowery arch that spans the heavens? In 
like manner, religion will show its benefits in 
the dew drop blessings of time, but to see and 
enjoy it in its highest state it must be seen in 
the magnificent form of eternity. 

^.t is a singular fact that the more we look 
into the depths of eternity, the more w^e will be 
led to look into the depths of ourselves. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

ENVY. 

ONE of the most dangerous forms of inward 
depravity is envy. It is a form of sin 
which the world looks upon with great leniency, 
which fashionable people in society look upon 
as half a virtue, and which many professing 
Christians regard as a very ordinary defect. 
But according to the Word of God, it is the 
seed bed of unlimited misery and crime. Envy 
as an evil affection in the heart has two parts 
to it, consisting of hatred to otliers, because of 
their superiority in excellence, station or ad- 
vantage, and at the same time, a certain degree 
of vexatious anger because of the inferiority of 
its possessor. Envy acts as a terrible cancer in 
the heart ; it destroys the soul's own happiness; 
it prevents its owner from loving his neighbor ; 
from enjoying the prosperity of others : it pre- 
vents him from enjoying his own blessing ; it 
puts sourness into every blessing ; throws 
gloom into the sunshine; and turns the soul 
ultimately into an engine of malice. It is in 
this sense the Bible declares that ''Envy slayeth 

(90) 



ENVY, 91 

the silly one," and that '' envy is the rottenness 
of the bones." Envy is manifested against 
those of superior amiability, as was the case 
against Joseph by his brethren. It is said that 
Joseph's brethren '^ envied him " and '' through 
envy sold him." They recognized in him a 
loveliness of disposition, a loftiness of aim, a 
purity of motive, a winsomeness of character 
which captivated the father's heart, and signal- 
ized him so far above themselves that they 
hated him for his very excellences, called him 
nicknames, caricatured his most unselfish ex- 
pressions. Had their hearts been thoroughly 
pure, so as to " rejoice with them that do re- 
joice," the very reasons for their envy would 
have been reasons for their love and apprecia- 
tion. Another instance of envy is that against 
tlie success of Moses as a great leader and com- 
mander. We are told that they '' envied Moses 
also within the camp." 

And this mean spirit was not from the 
lowest ranks of the people, but among the 
high church officials and his own near relatives. 
Their envy could not brook any superior. His 
extraordinary abilities ; his constant access to 
God; his quick and far-seeing insight ; his 
divinely inspired sway over the people was a 
constant torture to those who envied him. This 
example of envy has been repeated thousands 



92 . THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

of times, not only among sinners, but in the 
highest ecclesiastical circles. There is a certain 
battle-scarred missionary from the Dark Conti- 
nent, and when he appears among great bodies 
of Christians, aflutter of excitement passes over 
the assembly, and the multitudes instinctively 
rise to welcome him. But this very man, be- 
cause of his unselfish triumphs for Jesus, is 
envied by some who are vexed at him because 
of the very things that make him good and great 
and beloved. Daniel was envied because of his 
superior talent. Paul was envied by the Jews 
because of his success in making converts. 
Jesus was envied by the Scribes and Pharisees 
because of His mighty, spiritual power over the 
people. If anyone doubts the statement that 
envy is the secret spring of crime, let him look 
at the Word of God and history. The Bible 
inquires, '' Who is able to stand before envy ? " 
As if, like a great forest fire, it burned down 
everything before it. Paul speaks of certain 
persons as being '' full of envy and murder." 
Notice how the Spirit puts murder as the fruit 
sprouting from the seed of envy. Again, he 
says, ''Whereof cometh envy, strife, railings." 
And again, " Where envying is, there is confu- 
sion and every evil work." Again Paul wrote 
to the Corinthians saying, '' I fear lest there be 
envyings, wraths." 



ENVY. 93 

Envy hunts for defects in those who are 
above it, it endeavors to shine by beclouding 
the splendor of others, and tossing the lustre of 
others down to its own darkness. It miscon- 
strues the good in others to make itself seem 
good. It forms and industriously circulates 
slander against superiors in order to seem virtu- 
ous itself. 

It Avas envy that slew Abel ; sold Joseph ; 
slandered Moses ; put Daniel in the lion's den ; 
crucified Jesus ; stoned Stephen ; persecuted 
Paul ; built the Inquisition ; mobbed Wesley ; 
and in ten thousand ways tried to deface the 
form of goodness, to throw malicious vitriol into 
the face of loveliness. It is peculiarly a Satanic 
trait. Every atom of this disposition must be 
purged out of us before we can be Bible Chris- 
tians or enter heaven. Envy is the utter re- 
versal of the spirit of brotherly love. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE LEAKAGE OF LOVE. 

LOVE is the very substance and marrow of 
moral perfection. Faith is the condition 
of forgiveness and cleansing ; and the removing 
of actual and indwelling sin is the condition of 
the fullness of love. Many seek only for partial 
holiness ; they seek it merely as a cure for some 
besetting sin ; others seek it as a boon for some 
sorrow ; others seek it in a mere negative form 
of cleansing ; but the true idea is, that the 
whole being shall be made complete in God's 
love. 

There is a danger of the leakage of love out 
of the heart that many are not aware of. Love 
is like a flame or a volatile fluid ; it is not like a 
a rigid, fixed substance. It is ever in a fine, 
subtle motion, and needs constant feeding. A 
piece of wood is solid and stationary in its form, 
remaining the same year after year ; but the soft 
quivering flame is very different. So you may 
have the clear, specific doctrine of sanctification 
fixed as an unchanging truth in your mind, and 

(94) 



THE LEAKAQE OF LOVE. 95 

yet the quivering flame of love in your heart is 
another thing; and persons who were once 
truly sanctified may go on holding the well- 
defined doctrine and testimony of holiness, 
while, unconsciously, the fragrance and warmth 
of holy love have leaked out of the heart. It 
is much easier to retain certain truths fixed in 
the reason, than to retain a fixedness in the 
affections. Oar emotions glide away impercep- 
tibly ; our affections leak out of the soul un- 
awares. It requires much diligence and the 
adding of heart fuel to keep a lowly, loving 
flame in the soul. 

Occasionally you will find a person who has 
been sanctified, still holding the profession, and 
grasping the clear doctrine, but who has, from 
various causes, allowed the warm, loving spirit 
to leak out; and he is restive, impatient, and 
harsh under neglect, persecution and opposition. 

Those things which are the sweetest are sus- 
ceptible of being turned into the most sour; 
and perfect love, losing itself in the fermenta- 
tion of spirit and turning into sour, is one of 
the harshest, bitterest things on earth. 

As there is a phj^sical law by Avhich sweet juices 
can be kept from fermenting into sour, so there 
.is a spiritual law to keep pure love from losing 
its love power, and turning into moral vinegar. 
When a soul is thoroughly sanctified, it is 



96 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

wondrously illuminated. It sees the church, 
the obligations of the ministry, the duties of 
religion, and human character, under an inten- 
sity of light and solemnity of conviction, 
almost indescribable ; and it will act and judge 
and speak according to this intensity of vision. 
Other believers, whose hearts are still partially 
veiled by the carnal reason, can have no con- 
ception of the intense light of the fully 
sanctified. Hence, that which seems harmless 
to the partially blind, may be monstrous and 
offensive to the fully illuminated. 

Now it will take an immense amount of love 
to keep the gentleness and^charity of the heart 
up equal to the sharp discernment of the mind. 

Mr. Wesley often observed that great light 
upon religious matters, without great love, was 
dangerous. 

If the flow of love in the heart is not kept 
up to the measure of conviction, then the 
sharply defined convictions will assume a harsh 
and unkind edge that will cut contrary to the 
mind of Jesus. We must keep the affections 
pure, and warm, and tender, at any cost. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE INNER MAN. 

THROUGHOUT the Word of God there are 
frequent allusions to the five senses of the 
soul. It no more attempts to prove the exist- 
ence of these senses than to prove the senses of 
the body, but they are assumed as a matter of 
fact, and the Holy Spirit speaks of the existence 
of an '' inner man " as being just as much a 
matter of reality as the outward physical man. 
It would fill a little volume to collect all the 
Scriptures in which the senses of the soul are 
mentioned. Perhaps none of them would be 
any stronger than the fourteenth verse of the 
fifth chapter of Hebrews : " But strong meat 
belongeth to them that are of full age, even 
those who by reason of use have their senses 
exercised to discern both good and evil." The 
marginal reading and correct rendering is, 
Strong meat belongeth to them that are perfect, 
to those who by the habitual use of their senses 
(spiritual) can discern both good and evil. 
The idea of full age, or old age, is not in the 

(97) 



98 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

text at all, and was put in by the translators 
because of the old notion that nobody could be 
a perfect Christian except by long growth and 
old age, whereas the reference is to a being 
having all its senses clear, strong, complete, 
without any reference to whether he be old or 
young. A young believer, as well as an old one, 
may be so alive to God, and have all his spirit- 
ual senses so cleansed and filled with the Spirit, 
as to be able to discern spiritual things, and by 
the exercise of the sanctified soul senses, detect 
readily and intuitively, the facts in the moral 
and spiritual realm, whether they be good or 
evil. The soul of the sinner has all the senses, 
but they are locked in the dark sleep of sin, 
and he can no more see or hear or feel the 
things of God and the heavenly world, than an 
unborn man can perceive the sights and sounds 
and magnitudes of the material world. 

In order for the soul to have the use of its 
spiritual senses, it must be born into a spiritual 
world, its whole being and faculties regenerated 
by the Holy Ghost. In this age of loose 
theology and the paring down of the supernat- 
ural in religion, the great miracle of the new 
faith needs to be emphasized with the infinite 
''must^' which Jesus attached to it. When the 
soul is first converted it is, in reality, a spiritual 
infant, introduced into a spiritual world, and 



THE INNER MAN 99 

under the dominion of laws, loves, longings, 
kinships and apprehensions, that are spiritual. 
And although it has all the senses and the 
graces belonging to the spiritual kingdom 
numerically, yet they are weak, limited, and 
often rendered dull and inoperative by remain- 
ing carnality. This is what the apostle declares 
concerning the Hebrew converts, when he says 
that they were " dull of hearing and could not 
take strong meat, and were inexperienced in the 
word of righteousness, when at the time they 
ought to have been teachers." He affirms the 
same concerning the converted Corinthians. 

The vigor and perfection of the bodily senses 
(unless wounded by an outward force) depend 
on the purity and vigor of the blood ; so the 
power and acuteness of the spiritual senses 
depend on the purity of the heart and the full- 
ness of the Holy Spirit. A little infant can see, 
but he cannot discern shades of color, or dis- 
tance ; he can hear, but he cannot locate sounds ; 
while the senses of touch, taste and smell are 
feeble. These facts are true of the spiritual 
babe : he cannot detect the shades of moral 
quality, he cannot measure accurately moral 
distances, he is slow to detect evil that hides 
itself behind apparent good ; he does not readily 
discriminate the agency of Satan, nor has he an 
acute ear for the voice of God. The infancy of 



iOO THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

a Christian does not depend upon years, for 
there are thousands of sad cases where old 
Christians blunder along with exceedingly dull 
apprehension of spiritual things. The inner 
spiritual man is in a kingdom governed by the 
Holy Ghost, and not the slow laws of material- 
ism. There are analogies between the different 
kingdoms, but it is absurd to make these com- 
parisons go on all fours. A man under the 
reign of animal life will reach his maturity one 
hundred times quicker than the big trees of 
California reach theirs, and why should not the 
inner spiritual man, under the direct agency of 
the Holy Ghost, reach his moral maturity a 
hundred times quicker than the outward physi- 
cal man ? 

There are three great facts to spiritual life. 
First, divine life imparted to the soul. Second- 
ly, the life purified from all internal hindrances. 
Third, the life elaborated and utilized in actual 
service. 

First, the corn must be planted. ^Second, 
it must be purified from weeds and grass, and 
thirdly, utilized into flour and food. We have 
gold first in the quartz, then purified and turned 
into bullion, then minted into coin for service. 
In regeneration the gold of Christian life is 
imparted. In sanctification the flinty quartz of 
original depravity is removed, then under the 



THE TNNKR MAN. 101 

fullness and guidance of the Spirit the faculties 
and powers become currency in the kingdom of 
God to do service for him. It is amazing to 
what an extent the spiritual senses may be 
carried in their refinement and vigor of appre- 
hension. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

SPIRITUAL DISCRIMINATION. 

IT is a fundamental law in the constitution of 
the soul, that spiritual understanding and 
discrimination is directly connected with the 
condition of the heart. Corruption in the 
heart inevitably produces disorder and darkness 
in the mind ; and purity of heart clarifies the 
intellect and imparts to it strong and acute 
perceptions. This truth is abundantly referred 
to in the Scriptures. " To the upright there 
ariseth light in the darkness." The pure in 
heart see God. "I will cure them, and will 
reveal the abundance of peace and truth." 
There are scores of similar statements in which 
knowledge, revelation, vision, follow as a con- 
sequence upon the purification of the heart. 
So many attempt to reverse this order and have 
tlie understanding first and the experience after- 
wards, but God's unchangeable rule is a work of 
grace in the heart first, and the understanding 
of it afterwards. It is always growth iii grace 
first, and then knowledge. One of the marvel- 

(102) 



SPIRITUAL DISCRiMINATiOJSr. 103 

i3us effects of full sanctification is the clearness 
and acuteness it imparts to the five senses of the 
inner man. To instance a few samples of dis- 
crimination under the full baptism of the Spirit: 
1. The difference between things and beings. 
To such a soul the persons of the trinity, good 
angels, and evil spirits, are not merged in a 
tangled maze of indefinite things but they 
are perceived by the understanding with the 
same clearness they are spoken of in the Scrip- 
tures; and, on the other hand, the inanimate 
forces of nature are not idolized and enthroned 
as beings. It is a notorious fact that half- 
illuminated Christians, and unregenerate church 
members, have a tendency to reduce spiritual 
personalities to the order of mere things, and 
have, on the other hand, a tendency to exalt a 
mere law of nature, into doing the work of the 
Saviour. This is done when growth, which is a 
law of nature, is supposed to cleanse the heart, 
which is the exclusive work of a personal 
Saviour. The fully purified soul, though he 
be unlearned, will never make such a blunder 
in his moral perceptions. To such an one how 
real is the promise, " Thine eye shall see the 
King in His beauty, they shall behold the land 
that is very far," which promise has direct 
reference to the spiritual perceptions in this life, 
for the preceding verses describe conditions and 



104 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

experiences which can only be in this world. 

2. It discriminates between temptation and 
sin. Such a soul may not always be able to 
define accurately the difference between the two, 
it may not have the gift of putting into language 
the clear-cut verities of the inner man, but there 
is an inward sense of feeling by which it finds 
out the difference between a suggestion to com- 
mit sin and the consent of the heart to do it. 
It finds out hy a silent, inward teacher the 
difference between evil thoughts and thoughts 
of evil ; that evil thoughts are such as originate 
in the heart or are willingly entertained there, 
but that a thought of evil is a suggestion to the 
mind which can be repelled. The one is of the 
nature of a burglar, while the other is an 
admitted lodger in the tenement. 

3. The purified spiritual senses discriminate 
between things learned and things revealed. 
We learn things gradually, but the Holy Spirit 
reveals truth to our hearts instantaneously. 
The consciousness of adoption is revealed, not 
learned, and so the certainty of heart purity is 
revealed and not learned. We learn through our 
outer senses, and in connection with these the 
use of our mental faculties ; thus we learn dis- 
tance, magnitude, form, color, number, how to 
trace cause and effect, and the relation of things. 
But when spiritual things are revealed to us. 



SPIRITUAL DISCRIMINATION, 106 

the Holy Ghost works upon our intuition, and 
knowledge so received is instantaneous. There 
are three kinds of knowledge, — instinctive, 
rational, and intuitive. Instinctive predomi- 
nates mostly among the lower animals ; rational, 
mostly among men, and intuitive, mostly among 
spiritual and heavenly beings, but man has all 
three of these forms uf knowledge in himself. 
The intuitive form of spiritual knowledge is 
not contrary to reason, but is just as far above 
reason as reason is above the instincts of the 
lower animals. To find a list of items showing 
the difference between what we gradually learn 
and what is instantaneously revealed to us, we 
can look at a concordance under the words 
'' learn " and '' know." 

4. It is the office of the spiritual senses to 
discern quickly the soul's enemies. God has 
endowed all creatures with the mechanism of 
instinct, by which they can each readily detect 
their peculiar foes. A hen with a brood of 
chickens will detect the flight of a hawk in the 
sky quicker than any hunter. A divine detec- 
tive gift, similar to this, is imparted to the 
purified soul by the Holy Spirit. There was 
some diff'erence between the foes which the 
Jews had in the wilderness and in the land of 
promise. Their enemies in the wilderness were 
their kindred according to the flesh, descend- 



106 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

ants of Esau and Ishmael, but their enemies in 
Canaan were of a foreign race. In like manner 
when believers are in their wilderness experience, 
their spiritual conflict has to do mainly with the' 
carnal elements still remaining in them, but on 
entering the higher Canaan life, their welfare is 
more immediately with evil spirits, and the 
direct assaults of the personal Satan. This is 
the teaching of St. Paul where he says : " We 
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 
principalities, against powers, against the rulers 
of the darkness of this world, against wicked 
spirits in heavenly places." (Margin.) It is of 
immense advantage to the soul to recognize its 
foes, and to discriminate between them and the 
innocent frailties and infirmities, which are 
inseparable from our earthly stage of existence. 
This is what Paul means by saj- ing those who 
are perfect have their senses exercised to dis- 
cern good and evil. The activity and vigor of 
our spiritual senses depend on our union with 
Jesus through the Holy Spirit. What would 
the eye be worth unless it were united with 
the light? What would the ear be worth unless 
it could act in union with sound ? In like 
manner what are all the marvelous senses of the 
soul worth until brought under the operation of 
the Holy Ghost, who alone can purify them, 
bring them into full normal action, and cause 



SPIRITUAL DISCRIMINATION. 107 

them to recognize and enjoy a whole world of 
divine and heavenly things ? 



CHAPTER XXII. 

IKSTAKTANEOUS PURIFICATION. 

^^ TESUS put forth His hand and touched 
U him, saying, I will, be thou clean. And 
immediately his leprosy was cleansed." Matt. 
8: 3. 

The miracles of Jesus are photographs of the 
operations of His grace. Some of them are 
types of pardon, others of cleansing, and others 
of glorification. The miracle specified in the 
text in a peculiar manner sets forth heart 
purification. Leprosy is nowhere a type of 
actual sin, but always emblematic of original 
depravity. Its perfect likeness to the carnal 
mind can be seen in the following items : It is 
hereditary and not so much contagious : again, 
it does not manifest itself so much in infancy 
as in later years; again, the offspring of leprous 
parents will inevitably have the malady; again, 
there is no known cure for it in the world, but it 
has been cured by miraculous mercy ; again, in 
every instance where it has been cured, it was 
wrought instantaneously. In all these items it 

(108) 



INSTANTANEOUS PURIFICATION. 109 

corresponds exactly with human depravity. 
The instantaneous cure mentioned in the text 
is worthy of special consideration, in connection 
with the operations of grace. Confounding the 
instantaneous and the gradual in Christian 
experience is the source of much theological 
nonsense, and of more objection to full salva- 
tion than all other things put together. In 
order to get a clear view of instantaneous heart 
cleansing, let us notice the following points : 

1. It must not be confounded with the steps 
of entire consecration. Consecration is man's 
side of the work, which has various steps to it, 
and is gradual until the last item of it is reached. 
But purification is God's side of the work, and 
is wrought instantaneously. We work in time, 
in successive thoughts and feelings. Our facul- 
ties are so limited that they cannot all work at the 
same moment with equal intensity and concen- 
tration ; hence there must be a series of acts in 
our minds, thought following thought, feeling 
succeeding feeling. Thus we approach a state 
of entire yielding to God by approximate steps. 
There is an increasing of conviction of our 
need, and increasing fervency of desire, and we 
yield ourselves in an itemized manner until the 
last point of consecration is reached. But God 
is not so limited in the operations of His Spirit, 
He does not have to think iu successive 



\ 



110 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

thoughts. With Him, ''one day is as a thou- 
sand years." We may be gradually approaching 
a telegraph office and gradually writing out our 
dispatch, but when the conditions are all met 
the electrical message goes instantaneously. In 
like manner, the gradual approaches to heart 
purity must not be confounded with the instan- 
taneous cleansing of the Holy Spirit. 

2. We must not confound heart cleansing 
with the process of natural law. Here is where 
many blunder, supposing that salvation is the 
out-working of some law. Salvation either in 
pardon or heart cleansing is never a process of 
law, but always a work of God, an act of the 
divine will, the result of an Almighty volition, 
that volition which is infinitely above law. In 
nature God works by an established order 
through agents and sub-agents which we call 
law. And in providence He uses manifold 
means and agents, but in saving a soul He goes 
above and beyond the laws of nature or the 
instruments of providence, and works directly 
on the subject ; forgiving the sins of the peni- 
tent, and cleansing the heart of the perfectly 
consecrated by the action of His infinite will ; 
speaking from His infinite self directly to the 
heart, ''Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven," or 
" I will, be thou clean." Everywhere in the 
Scriptures we find salvaiiou declared to be the 



INSTANTANEOUS PURIFICATION. Ill 

direct work of God, and never of any law ot 
agent. Thus we read, '' I will circumcise thy 
heart," " I will sprinkle clean water upon thee," 
••'I will purge aw^ay thy dross," ''My Father 
cleanseth it," '' Unto Him that loved us and 
washed us," in fact, there is not a verse in the 
Bible where salvation is delegated of any angel, 
or saint, or Church, or ceremony, or law, or pro- 
cess, but always proceeding as an act of God. 
Men are so fond of magnifying nature and law 
that even in sermons and theological writings, 
in a thousand subtle ways, God has been de- 
throned, and some imaginary law or process or 
development, has been put in His place as per- 
forming the work of salvation ; in every such 
instance salvation from sin is made gradual, 
whereas the action of the divine will is always 
instantaneous. We find no instance in Scrip- 
ture where a divine act is spoken of as gradual. 
3. All the Scripture emblems indicate that 
heart sanctification is instantaneous or occupies 
a very brief period. It is spoken of as a creation. 
'' Create in me a clean heart." Creation is 
instantaneous. '' He spake and it was done." 
It is spoken of as pouring out water, as wash- 
ing, as circumcision, as purifying gold, as 
putting on clean robes, as crucifixion or making 
dead. Even the longest illustration used in 
Scripture does not include more than four or 



112 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

five hours ; and most of them represent a work 
that takes place in a moment. But the old 
notion that prevails everywhere, that heart 
cleansing is a slow process, extending through 
months and years, is not even hinted in the 
Scriptures. 

4. The act of heart cleansing must not be 
confounded with growth in grace. Growth and 
purification belong to two distinct realms of 
action. All growth belongs to the realm of 
nature and under the regimen of law; but 
purification is a divine act. The growth of the 
Christian previous to sanctification does not 
purify his heart, and on the other hand, after 
his heart is thoroughly cleansed, the soil of his 
nature is but prepared for continuous, rapid and 
unlimited growth in all the graces of the Spirit. 
In all the Scripture instances and emblems 'of 
growth, it is nowhere identified with the divine 
act of heart cleansing. The growth of a stalk 
of corn is one thing, but its purity of freedom 
from disease is quite another. All the stale 
illustrations and platitudes about the growth of 
the oak, and the broadening of the river, and 
tlie accumulation of muscle in the blacksmith's 
arm, and similar metaphors, are not to the point 
of heart cleansing. Purification has reference 
to the purity and health of the oak and not to 
its size, to the traijsparency of the river and 



INSTANTANEOUS PURIFICATION 113 

not to its enlargement, to the healthfulness and 
cleanness of the blacksmith's arm, and not to 
the size of its brawn. 

5. Instantaneous heart cleansing is eminently 
essential to our state of probation. The very 
fact that salvation can take place only in this 
life, and that we are liable to die at any moment, 
makes it essential that salvation, whether in the 
work of regeneration or sanctification, should 
be an instantaneous work. Growth i^ grace 
can take place in the future world, and is no- 
where stated in Scripture as a condition of 
admission to heaven ; but the thought is repeated 
over and over again in many ways, that without 
holiness no man shall see the Lord. When we 
consider the brevity of our opportunities, the 
uncertainty of life, even for a day, the absolute 
necessity of having a pure heart before death, 
we see the infinite wisdom in arranging for us 
an instantaneous cleansing, and also the great 
presumption in our putting it off or relegating 
it to a slow, gradual process. It is very strange 
that there is such a widespread and inveterate 
prejudice against instantaneous purification. 
But the very fact of such prejudice is an infallible 
proof of a fallen, perverted state of mind. If 
we saw the truth in cloudless apprehension, we 
would rejoice that God has, in boundless mercy, 
provided a sudden sanctification as an emer- 
gency against sudden death. 



114 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

Those who hold to gradual sanctification do 
not bear testimony to its experience, but those 
who have found the experience uniformly 
declare in harmonj^ with the Scripture that 
'' immediately their leprosy departed from 
them." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

HINDRANCES TO HOLINESS. 

HOLINESS is the most essential thing in 
the universe to a moral creature. Holi- 
ness is not an action, but a state of being which 
lies behind the action. Holiness is a state of 
purity, of simplicity, of unmixedness with 
foreign elements. All sin is a foreign element 
to pure, simple human nature. It is to the 
moral nature what a fever is to the blood. If 
purity — that is, unmixedness — is essential to 
having good water, good air, good bread, good 
health, good soil for growth of crops, it is infin- 
itely more essential to the soul. Holiness of 
heart is more essential to the well-being and 
destiny of the soul than knowledge, or power, 
or great talents. A hol}^ nature will wonder- 
fully utilize a small amount of knowledge, 
power, or wealth ; but, on the other hand, the 
principle of sin in the soul will pervert and 
squander a vast amount of learning or riches, 
or opportunity. Whatever hinders the obtain - 
ment of complete moral purity blocks the train. 

(115) 



116 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

strangles the life, and forfeits the true end of 
our being. 

Perhaps the first great hindrance to holiness 
is a failure to apprehend its necessity. So 
many locate all goodness in the activities of life, 
and fail to discern the true state of being. So 
many think there is no sin except in the act, and 
not seeing that all inherent darkness, perversity, 
crookedness or impurity embedded in the nature 
itself is of the quality of sin, do not realize 
the necessity of being purified in the very sub- 
stance of the inner nature. 

It is comparatively easy to lead Christian 
people to appropriate Jesus as a sanctifier when 
they once fully realize the absolute need of cleans- 
ing. Hence one of the most successful methods 
of preaching holiness is to analyze the heart, to 
delineate the features of the native inner man, 
to show his characteristics, his pedigree, his 
behavior, his moral complexion, not only as he 
acts in the sinner but also as he acts in a 
restrained and subtle way in the believer. If 
such a portrayal is made in a wise and scriptural 
manner, every honest and truly converted soul 
will see more or less his need of a deeper work 
of grace, and, at the same time, his conscience 
and judgment will side with the truth, though 
the carnal elements in him may rebel. 

Another hindrance to attaining heart purity 



niNDkANCES TO HOLINESS, 117 

is the lack of being clear in justification. 
Sanctification begins in justification, and if we 
are not clearly pardoned we are below the point 
where holiness begins. To say that the people 
who are fully cleansed have just been restored 
from backsliding, is not only a slander on the 
work of God, but reveals great ignorance con- 
cerning the doctrine of Scripture and the deep 
facts of the soul. Persons who most intensely 
hate inward sin, and most fervently desire the 
whole mind of Christ, are those who are in the 
clearest light of justification. A backslidden 
state dulls the apprehension respecting the 
need of holiness ; it veils the pure nature of 
Christ from the understanding; it blunts the 
inward sensibilities to the touch of divine 
truth ; it opens the mind to the reception of all 
sorts of heresies respecting divine things. 

Another hindrance to holiness is viewing it 
in an unscriptural light, and holding unscrip- 
tural views respecting it. Among such un- 
scriptural views is that of being purified from 
original sin at the same time we are pardoned 
from actual sin, and confounding the two. 
Also the error that our sanctification is located 
in the person of Christ, instead of being 
imparted to our nature by the Holy Spirit. 
Also that of confounding the cleansing of the 
soul with growth in grace, and also the theory 



118 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

that inward sin is only to be repressed and not 
purged out of our being. The persistent hold- 
ing of any one of these unscriptural views will 
effectually prevent the soul from entering into 
that rest of heart of which Canaan is a type. 

There is a notion afloat among the churches 
that people can believe most anything respect- 
ing salvation, that they can hold several views 
about grace, or no definite view at all, and j^et 
in some way blunder into deep religious expe- 
rience. But the Holy Ghost never works along 
lines of error. It is true, thousands are saved 
and fully cleansed who do not understand the 
theology of it, but they do always apprehend 
the cardinal |acts in the case. 

There are many other hindrances, such as 
an unwillingness to get light on the subject, a 
prejudice against the Scripture terms, stumbling 
over other people, being frightened at a stray 
fanatic, an unwillingness to give up self at some 
point. But whatever the hindrance may be, it 
must give way before we can enter the paradise 
of God. If we as God's children will keep our 
eyes on the main facts in the case, our need and 
Christ's supply, if we have a teachable and 
obedient heart, God will find many ways to 
break down barriers, to send us help from un- 
expected quarters, and make the seemingly im- 
possible melt away to an easy and simple thing. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE THREEFOLD EVIDENCE IN GRACE. 

THE Apostle Peter, in calling our attention 
to the certainties of experimental salva- 
tion, mentions three forms or three degrees of 
certainty. " For we have not followed cun- 
ningly devised fables, when we made known 
unto you the power and coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, but were eye witnesses of His 
majesty. For he received from God the Father, 
honor and glory, when there came such a voice 
to Him from the excellent glory. This is My 
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And 
this voice which came from heaven we heard, 
when we were with Him in the holy mount. 
We have also a more sure word of prophecy, 
whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as 
unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until 
the day dawn and the day-star arise in your 
hearts." 2 Pet. 1 : 16-19. 

In analyzing these verses we see the contrast 
between fables and revealed religion. Fables 
exist only in imagination based on tradition, 

(119) 



120 THE SECtlKT OP' SPIRITUAL POWEH. 

but Christian salvation exists in experience, 
springing from divine revelation. The next 
item of analysis is that the certainties of this 
salvation touch the whole threefold nature of 
man, body, soul and spirit. It would be inter- 
esting to enumerate how frequently the idea of 
the trinity comes out in religious life. Three 
things constitute religious life — the doctrine, 
the experience, the outward practice. Thei^e 
are three elements in divine guidance — the 
revealed Word, the direct conviction of the 
Spirit, and the indications of Providence. 

The three evidences mentioned in this pas- 
sage by Peter are the testimony of the senses, 
the inspired Word, and the direct assurance of 
the Spirit. The first in order here is the testi- 
mony of the senses. We were "eye witnesses 
of His majesty," a ''voice from the excellent 
glory," and '' this voice we heard." Seeing and 
hearing are the primary sources of acquired 
knowledge. 

There are two hemispheres of knowledge; 
first, the hemisphere of what we learn through 
our senses ; secondly, the hemisphere of knowl- 
edge revealed intuitively by the Spirit. In the 
order of nature the knowledge through the 
senses comes first. Many people think if they 
could only see and hear the historical facts of 
the New Testament repeated, they could readily 



THE THREEFOLD EVIDENCE IN GRACE, 121 

believe. But the wisdom of God has so 
arranged it that these facts are virtually re- 
peated to each generation. There are yet 
transfigurations, the casting out of demons, 
Pauline conversions, and similar phenomena of 
grace which appeal to our eyes and ears, if we 
are willing to turn aside and see the sight. 
Have we not seen the wretched drunkard 
turned into a neat and earnest saint? Have 
we not seen the blurred face of sorrow or the 
gloomy face of despair made radiant with joy? 
Have we not heard the voice of blasphemy turned 
into a voice of prayer and praise, or the voice 
of complaining turned into that of thanksgiving? 
If we have not heard or seen, it is because we 
have not gone to the spiritual mountains or the 
gracious valleys where such things are enacted. 
The voice of praise that breaks from a saved 
soul is like the prolongation of that voice which 
Peter heard in the holy mount. The luster 
that beams from every saintly countenance is 
the outshining of a part of that uncreated light 
which glistened through the raiment of Jesus 
at the transfiguration. They are effects from 
the same great cause referred to by Peter in the 
text. 

When we sit on the seashore and see the 
whitecapped rollers coming in, and hear their 
melodious dashing on the sand, we know that 



122 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

the cause which produces these sights and 
sounds is far off on the great deep ; and that far 
out on the sea, beyond our sight, these breakers 
were set in motion. In like manner, far across 
on the sea of time, the living historical Jesus, 
who was visible and audible to the people of 
that generation, has by the perpetuity of His 
Word and Spirit so wrought on human souls, 
that the waves of grace He has set in motion 
still manifest themselves to our eyes and ears. 

The next form of evidence is that of the 
inspired written Word, which the apostle de- 
clares is stronger than the testimony of the 
senses. '' We also have a more sure word of 
prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take 
heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark 
place." The natural man thinks that the testi- 
mony of the senses is the highest possible ; but, 
as in many other instances, that which is the 
highest in nature is the lowest in grace. It is 
possible for our senses to deceive us, and very 
many instances might be cited to prove this, 
such as color blindness, double or triple vision, 
where persons see objects multiplied ; also 
where disease in the auditory nerve reports 
sounds to the brain which do not occur in the 
vibrations in the air. The Word of God is 
absolutely free from such imperfections. 

It is more sure than the senses, because so 



THE THREEFOLD EVIDENCE IN GRACE. 123 

fitted by infinite wisdom to the mental and 
moral mechanism of the soul, that the very 
announcement of Scripture truth to the human 
mind, in any age of the world, whether among 
civilized or savage men, Avill carry conviction to 
the heart. No human being has ever lived 
whose soul would not respond to the truth of 
God's Word, unless it has first been tutored to 
unbelief, or morally stupefied by satanic opiates. 
You may select any congregation from the 
millions of earth, whether cultured or barba- 
rous, and a simple announcement to them in 
their own language, of the ten commandments, 
the sermon on the mount, and the means of 
salvation through Jesus, if such congregation 
had not been tampered with by false teaching, 
their unbiased hearts and judgments would feel 
the truthfulness of the Word of God. The 
Word of God properly addressed to a human 
heart, carries its own evidence as really as a 
lamp, and finds a faculty in the soul that must 
respond to it as really as the organ of the eye 
responds to the light. Just as the Creator has 
fitted each bone to its appropriate socket, or the 
waves of the air to the drum of the ear, so He 
has fitted the truth of Scripture to the reason 
and conscience of man ; and as the inner facul- 
ties of the soul are more authoritative than the 
senses of the body, so the Word of God is more 



124 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

sure of the inner man (if he is in liarmony with 
it), than the testimony of miracles to the out- 
ward man. 

The third and highest degree of evidence is 
that of the Holy Spirit working directly on 
interior consciousness. This form of evidence 
is indicated by the apostle in the words, ''Until 
the day dawn, and the day-star arise, in your 
hearts." The words '' dawn " and '' arise " are 
both in the aorist tense, and indicate two distinct, 
instantaneous events. The life of the Holy 
Ghost in the soul is emphatically the daylight 
of divine life in man. But inspiration is accu- 
rate enough to indicate the pre post pentecost 
life, by the difference between the light of day 
and the full-orbed manifestation of the day-star. 
The Word of God shines in a '' dark place," 
or, more emphatically, a '' filthy place," until 
the day dawn ; that is, Scripture truth shows us 
our sins and continues to manifest the filthiness 
of the heart, until the Holy Spirit regenerates 
us and scatters the gloom of guilt by an inward 
attestation of God's favor. We sometimes hear 
it said that the moon shines as bright as day ; 
and we also hear it said of some moral but 
unregenerate persons, that they are about as 
good as Christians. But there is almost an 
infinite difference between the one and the other. 
A thousand moons shining at their full would not 



THE THREEFOLD EVIDENCE IN GRACE. 125 

equal the light of day, though the sun were 
concealed behind a cloud or mountain ; and all 
the morality — be they ever so moral — of a 
million unregenerate souls would not equal the 
life of the humblest believer truly born of God. 
The difference is not that of quantity, but 
quality. The highest morality apart from the 
new birth is like moonlight, borrowed and re- 
flected from a cold, dead nature; but the inward 
life of the Holy Ghost, like the light of day, 
issues directly from its warm, living fountain. 
Religious certainty has not reached its climax 
until the personal Jesus, the day-star, has been 
unveiled in cloudless manifestation, as the full 
and perfect Saviour in the heart. And how 
true to experience are the words in the passage, 
that the Word of God will continue to shine 
and disclose the impurity of our nature, not 
only until we are regenerated, but until a fully 
manifested Christ purges us, and reveals His 
ineffable personality in our purified hearts. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE THREE MANIFESTATIONS OF JESUS. 

IN the third chapter of the first Epistle of John 
we have presented to us three manifesta- 
tions of Jesus, each one of which is directly 
connected with our salvation and glorification. 
In verse three, " When He shall appear we shall 
be like Him." In verse five, " He was mani- 
fested to take away our sins." In verse eight, 
" The Son of God was manifested that He might 
destroy the works of the devil." Each step in 
the elevation of man is directly connected with 
some revelation or manifestation of the Lord 
Jesus as the direct cause. It would be an 
interesting study, sufficient for a volume, to 
trace out in history all the moral upliftings of 
the race, and find the connecting link between 
such upliftings and some revelation of the Lord 
Jesus. 

Let us notice these three manifestations as 
they occur in the history of experience. 

1. '' He was manifested to take away our sins." 
Here are several suggestions. One is, the sins 

(126) 



THE THREE MANIFESTATIONS OF JESUS. 127 

are emphatically ours. The law is broken by 
our wills, our choice, our consent ; the evil 
dispositions are indulged in by our hearts ; our 
faculties and powers have been the instruments 
of transgression. They are not Satan's sins, and 
if they were necessitated, they would be God's 
and not ours. Another suggestion is the 
divorcement of us, ourselves, from our sins, 
which, to be Scripturally understood, does not 
imply that the act of sin is annihilated, or that 
an event of sin can be non-evented, for what is 
done as an act can never be undone, but that 
the guilt and offensiveness of our sinful acts are 
removed from us. So that while the act of sin 
does not cease to be an act, yet the quality of 
the act is taken away, the color, the odor, the 
morale^ is removed from the actor. Another 
suggestion is that this taking away of the 
quality of action from the actor is by the mani- 
festation of Jesus. He was manifested on the 
cross historically to the world, to bear the death 
penalty attached to committing sin, but in 
addition to that He must also be manifested as 
our personal Saviour and sin-bearer by the Holy 
Spirit to the eye of faith. Here is one of the 
deepest and most scientific truths in salvation, 
namely, tliat the quality of sinful actions can 
never be removed from the actor until Jesus is 
disclosed to that soul as its sin-bearer, and when 



128 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

such disclosure is made, and the soul truly 
apprehends Jesus by saving faith, instantly all 
the moral turpitude of its thousands of sinful acts 
vanishes away, and while the act remains as an 
unchangeable event, yet the essence of the act 
is gone, its color has been, as it were, bleached 
out. A beautiful illustration of this is given in 
the Scripture where God says, '' I have blotted 
out thy transgressions as a thick cloud." Many 
a time on summer mornings you may notice a 
thick cloud in the sky, but when the sun 
ascends the heavens, and is manifested in direct 
heat upon the cloud, it will rise to a higher 
altitude and be dissipated into viewless vapor, 
so that no telescope could find apart of it. Now, 
the atoms composing the cloud have not been 
annihilated, but the form, the color, the specific 
gravity, the motion, the quality of the cloud has 
been so wrought on by the manifested heat of 
the sun as to be taken away, while the atoms 
still remain. This scientific fact is equally true 
in the justification of the soul. Our actual 
sins form a cloud. But the word " sins " does 
not refer to the act itself, but to the moral 
quality of the act, so that when the bad moral 
quality of our actions are removed, it is emphati- 
cally true that our sins are taken away. 

2. " He was manifested to destroy the work 
of the devil." In a great variety of ways the 



THE THREE MANIFESTATIONS OF JESUS, 129 

Bible sets forth the difference between actual 
and original sin. In this chapter this distinction 
is clear, concise and philosophical. Actual sin 
is traced to the sinner, original sin is traced to 
Satan. The greatest work of Satan was to 
corrupt the human heart, and the carnal mind 
is emphatically a result of his work. When 
believers are earnestly seeking heart purity, 
they are distinctly conscious of a defection of 
nature, a corruption within which they clearly 
distinguish as not being of ^heir own choice or 
work. They are conscious, in the language of 
Scripture, that ''an enemy hath done this." 
Superficial or backslidden Christians often speak 
slightly of true believers groaning after heart 
purity, but it is because they have never gone 
deep enough into spiritual things to find the 
strata of inherent human nature or the mining 
processes of the Holy Ghost. Every Christian 
who has gone through with perfect inward cruci- 
fixion knows that we can be conscious of having 
every Christian grace, and, at the same time, 
conscious of an inherent perversity, which is 
the opposite of every grace. We feel it and 
hate it. We know it is in us but not of us, 
that it is a foreign element to our true normal 
human nature. Now the question is how this 
inward corruption can be destroyed. So many 
try growth, development, repression, and any 



130 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

jind every subterfuge except the remedy 
mentioned here, a special manifestation of Jesus 
as the direct cause of heart cleansing* But 
what can it mean to destroy the carnal mind ? 
It will be easily understood if we remember 
that sin is not an entity, that it has no substance 
or existence apart from a moral creature, that 
it is of the nature of a pain, or a fever, or. a 
dream, none of which can exist apart from some 
living being. Thoughtless persons sometimes 
ask, '' Where does inbred sin go when cleansed 
away?" The sufficient ansAver is Where does 
a fever go, or a headache go, when the body is 
restored to normal health ? Just as fever can 
exist only in the derangement of the blood, so 
the carnal mind exists only by some funda- 
mental derangement of the moral heart, which 
is to the soul what blood is to the body. And 
when the earnest Christian, struggling for 
perfect heart rest, apprehends Jesus as the only 
and all sufficient and present Cleanser, the Holy 
Ghost will so manifest him as a Sanctifier, that 
the leprosy of inward sin instantly vanishes as 
darkness when a light enters a room. 

3. '' When He shall appear we shall be like 
Him." This is the final manifestation of Jesus 
in His capacity of Redeemer. According to the 
Scripture, redemption is not complete till the 
body is raised from the dead and soul and body 



THE THREE MANIFESTATIONS OF JESZ^S, 181 

glorified in the beatific presence of the Lord. 
Though our sins are taken away, and though 
the carnal mind is destroyed, there are yet a 
multitude of infirmities, limitations, afflictions, 
which beset and load down more or less the 
saintliest persons. The pure in heart are con- 
scious of these hindrances, and yet, at the same 
time, conscious that they are not sin in the 
Scripture sense of that word. There is a trans- 
cendent work, utterly beyond our thoughts, 
which is to pass like seraphic lightning over our 
whole being at the glorious appearing of our 
Saviour. We may conjecture a thousand bliss- 
ful changes such a sight will produce in us, but 
it is all summed up in the words of the Holy 
Ghost : We shall be like Him, for we shall see 
Him as He is. 



CHAPTER XXVL 

WALKING IN LOVE. 

LOVE is the central, animating force in true 
religion. It is to the moral system what 
the sun is to the solar system, the warming, 
illuminating, moving power to every part. In 
the natural world every growing tree, flowing 
stream, breeze of wind, floating cloud, falling 
shower, opening bud, tossing wave is produced 
by the force of the sun. So in the spiritual 
realm every fervent prayer, act of charity, 
resistance to evil, gentle word, courageous act is 
a product of love. It is to the soul what blood 
is to the body. As the health and vigor of the 
bod)^ depend on the blood, so the health of the 
soul, the vigor of its righteousness, the bloom 
and color of its excellences depend on the 
qualitj^ and degree of love that pervades the 
spirit and prompts its movements. The term 
"walk" applies to all the movements of the 
spirit and life ; it is the ever-going, never-ceas- 
ing locomotion of the moral and mental nature. 
We walk in our words, our desires, our tempers, 

(132) 



WALKING IN LOVE. l33 

plans, purposes, prayers, sermons, opinions, 
business dealings, every unfolding of the spirit 
in an outward act, or an intention to act, con- 
stitutes a distinct step in the everlasting march 
of the soul on its journey through eternity. 
Footprints on the ocean shore may be erased by 
the next wave, but our souls are putting foot- 
prints into the passing hours which are indelibly 
preserved in our history. 

To walk in love, to speak, to act, to purpose, 
with the love of God pervading all our move- 
ments, is the best and sublimest form of exist- 
ence. To do this there must be a thorough abne- 
gation of self-will, self-opinion and self-desire. 

It is so easy for us to indulge in a spirit 
contrary to Christ's love under the guise of zeal 
or some other form of virtue. Let us apply 
walking in love to our preaching, teaching, 
exhortation, reproving. In all such deliver- 
ances we may be rigidly orthodox, severely 
truthful, forgetting that we break the truth the 
very moment we cease to hold the truth in love. 
How long it takes us to learn that '^ the letter 
killeth," that is, the exact, strict, doctrinal truth, 
when separated from the proper spirit which 
should go with it, becomes the instrument of 
death. Even the doctrine of holiness may be 
held and taught in such a spirit as to break the 
law of holiness. Without love the doctrines of 



134 THE SECnST OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

salvation may be presented in a ruinous way, 
and with love the doctrine of hell may be pre- 
sented in such Scriptural unction as to save souls. 
Apply this walking in love to prayer. Are not 
a great many prayers worse than wasted because 
uttered in a sharp, condemnatory or peevish and 
ill spirit? Have we not heard praj^ers which 
sounded like judging others or reprimanding 
others, or addressed to some individual in the 
company more than to God ? 

Do we ever catch ourselves uttering a prayer 
for the gratification of self, or either for the 
commendation or the condemnation of some one 
present? Let us remember that no prayers 
ascend to heaven with prevailing effect except in 
the same proportion as they have the spirit of 
heaven in them. That which comes from 
heaven will return thither. This is just as true 
of prayers as of pei'sons. It is the love force 
in our prayers that makes them telling with God 
or with men. If we pray thoughtfully, God 
will give us an inward light to detect any devia- 
tion from the spirit of love. It will often 
happen that we shall find ourselves about to 
utter some word or petition which is unwise or 
expresses a wrong sentiment, and before it 
escapes our lips the Spirit will lead us to utter 
something quite different, or else to so modify 
the tone of our voice and the manner of expres- 



WALKING IN LOVE. 136 

sion as to produce an eflFect just the opposite to 
what it would liave been but for His gen tie touch 
and illinninatiou. To use either flattery or 
recrimination in oar prayers may not be equally 
offensive to men, but it is equally offensive to 
God ; and in either case poisons our petitions. 
The thoughtfulness which is requisite in prayer 
is not that of intense intellectuality, but that 
tranquil kind of thoughtfulness which watches 
the outgoings of our heart to see that they are 
in harmony with the Scripture and pleasing to 
God. If this form of walking in love were 
observed, how many kinds of prayers it would 
weed out from religious services, and even from 
some holiness conventions and meetings. Apply 
this walking in love to our feelings toward and 
opinions of others. What my heart feels toward 
another, or what my opinion of him is, implies 
the activity of my moral nature and is a form 
of walking. Prejudice is an opinion formed 
beforehand, or without knowing the facts in the 
case, and if my mind walks in love, it will pre- 
vent prejudice, for love forms its estimate on 
the basis of knowledge. In our views of other 
people, other churches, other localities of country, 
other races, other forms of living, other kinds 
of meetings, other sorts of revival than those 
of our own, if our judgments were formed under 
the guidance of love, how tolerant they would 
be, how free from rash denunciation. 



136 TEE Secret of spiritual power. 

In that case our opinions would coincide with 
the Word of God. Apply this walking in love to 
matters of business, which would not only imply 
that we transacted our affairs honestly, but that 
the honesty and fair dealing were the outflow 
of a loving heart which, from its loving nature, 
preferred and delighted in fair dealing. We 
hear it said, that '^ honesty is the best policy," 
but the person that is honest for that reason is, 
at heart, a thief, for the same grounds he would 
steal, providing stealing was the best policy. 
To walk in love in buying and selling, in bor- 
rowing and lending, in begging and giving, in 
hiring and being hired, in being masters or 
servants would constitute an ideal society, and 
if all will not accept of this rule we can each 
have the privilege of forming one that does it, 
and if we should be the only one it will be to 
us just the same as if all the world did. The, 
Holy Spirit has chosen to feed us with such 
verses as the following : '' We should be with- 
out blame before Him in love," " Being rooted 
and grounded in love," '' Forbearing one another 
in love," ^' Speaking the truth in love," " The 
church edif3dng itself in love," '' Being knit 
together in love," '' Esteem them highly in love," 
" Walk in love," '' He that dwelleth in love 
dwelleth in God." When we look back over 
our lives, and see the times and places where 



WALKING IN LOVE. 137 

another disposition has governed our words and 
actions, they look like salt spots upon which no 
lovely fruit has grown. We may depend upon 
it no form of religion will succeed except that 
which springs from the blessed author of 
religion. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

HEAVENLY TREASURE. 

^^ r3UT lay up for yourselves treasures in 
U heaven, where neither moth nor rust 
doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break 
through, nor steal ; for where your treasure is 
there will your heart be also." Matt. 6: 20-21. 
" Knowing in yourselves that ye have in 
heaven a better and an enduring substance." 
Heb. 10: 34. 

The central truth in these verses is the state- 
ment, " where the treasure is there will the 
heart be." The author of the human heart alone 
knows all its boundless and mysterious work- 
ings. He does not say where the heart is there 
will the treasure be, but where the treasure is 
there will the heart be. The heart will follow 
its treasure as infallibly as the mother will 
follow her offspring, or rivers flow toward the 
sea. Let the treasure consist of anything, be 
located in any clime, or be ever so worthless to 
others, if it be really regarded as a treasure, 
thither will the heart fly and hover around it. 
<:i38) 



HEAVENLY TREASURE, 139 

In saving and restoring man to the image of 
God, Jesus does not plan to destroy a single law 
or instinct of the soul, but to purge out of it 
every perversion of sin, so that with all its 
instincts purified and unimpaired it will act in 
harmony with the purpose of God. One of the 
earliest and strongest instincts of the heart is a 
certain definite attachment to our possessions. 
This attachment to possessions is not the result 
of education or a thoughtful estimate of values, 
but a powerful instinctive action of the mind. 
Among the first thoughts of childhood is this 
idea of possession, and when a toy is placed in 
an infant's hand he at once has the idea of 
ownership, and with that thought springs up an 
attachment for the treasure, manifested by his 
cries and loud expostulations on having it taken 
from him. His reason could not explain it, but 
he feels it as distinctly as a millionaire. It is 
also the dictate of reason, it forms a mighty stim- 
ulus to industrj^ and inventions, it imparts an 
energy to society and prompts to economy, 
wisdom and care. Christ recognized this prin- 
ciple to be fundamental and right. But seeing 
the principle perverted by sin, and the heart 
thoroughly engrossed with fictitious treasures 
He commands that all His followers shall relin- 
quish all passionate heart attachment for 
treasures which are imaginary, and have the? 



140 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

heart thoroughly set on true riches; and in 
doing so proves Himself an infinite Friend to the 
soul. This command to the natural man seems 
very hard, but under the baptism of the Spirit 
it can be fully obeyed. When the early Clu'is- 
tians lost their earthly estates by confiscation, 
the apostle tells us, '' They took joyfully the 
spoiling of their goods, knowing that they had 
in heaven a better and an enduring substance." 
Let us notice some contrasts between earthly 
and heavenly treasures. 

1st. Earthly treasure is only the instrument 
of pleasure, while treasure in heaven is the very 
essence and substance of pleasure itself. There 
is a vast difference between the instrument 
which secures a joy and joy itself — just as the 
mill which grinds the wheat is different from 
the bread. All the riches of earth, in whatever 
form they may exist, can only serve as a means 
to an end, and when riches are looked upon as 
an end, they prove to be apples of Sodom. And 
even as an instrument, wealth is often unavail- 
ing. There are times when all the abundance 
of gold cannot buy a drop of water, or a mouth- 
ful of bread, or avert calamity, or ease a pain ; 
and while as an instrument it is capable of 
producing innumerable comforts and smoothing 
our passage through life in general, yet the 
richest often witness its inefficiency. But 



HEAVENLY TREASURE. 141 

heavenly treasure is iiot an instrument ; it is an 
everlasting fruition ; it enters into the very 
body and substance of true happiness. It is an 
estate of a moral and spiritual nature. The 
wealth of earth is a machine which may bring 
us a few drops of transient happiness, but 
wealth laid up in heaven forms an ocean of 
unalloyed bliss in which the soul may bathe, 
with the certainty of never losing it. Earthly 
riches make to themselves wings and fly away, 
but the gold tried in the fire is imperishable. 

2d. Earthly treasure from its very nature 
can never fill or satisfy the mind. It excites 
the faculties and inflames the passions, but can 
never satisfy them. They start a train of 
desires and ambitions which they can never 
fulfill ; they start a feverish thirst for acquisition 
which they can never quench. A child may 
start a machine which it is unable to stop. 
Milton personifies Sin, the portress at the gates 
of hell, as unlocking those gates, but having no 
power to shut them again. So earthly riches 
open the gate of the desires but cannot shut or 
fill them. And this applies equally to those of 
great or little wealth. And then, the uncertainty 
of their duration, the anxiety of guarding them, 
agitates the heart, disturbs repose of mind, and 
turns what promised to be a blessing into a 
source of misery. On the other hand, treasures 



142 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

laid up ill heaven will fill every capacity they 
create. Such riches excite the heart without 
leaving the least agitation u[)on it; they kindle 
desires but also satisfy tliem ; they draw tlie 
soul out in longings and tliirstings formore and 
more, but always keep the possessor in tranqnil- 
lity. And the consciousness that such wealth is 
unchangeable and immortal banishes all anxiety. 
A small fortune with the absolute certainty of 
its never being diminished is far more satisfac- 
tory than great riches held in uncertainty. So 
heavenly riches do not contract the soul or 
duly excite it, while accompanied by the prin- 
ciple of eternal security. 

3d. Earthly wealth used only for earthly 
purposes can never enter into union with the 
Spirit, but must always remain external to the 
soul; but when used for the glory of God it 
passes, as it were, into a heavenly state, it 
becomes identified with the immortal spirit, and 
incorporated with everlasting character. It is 
the apotheosis of wealth. True, the gold itself 
remains material, but being used in tlie divine 
will it represents holy character, accomplishes 
holy results, and is, in a certain sense, glorified. 
It is in this sense that Jesus says, '' Make to 
yourselves friends of the mammon of unright- 
eousness that when ye fail, they may receive 
you into everlasting habitations." Luke 16: 9. 



HEAVENLY TREASURE. 143 

That is, take earthly riches which when used 
sinfully become the idol mammon, but when 
used under the direction of the Holy Ghost in 
doing good to the bodies and souls of mankind, 
we make immortal friendships for ourselves, and 
when we fail on earth, these friends we have 
made, w^hether among the heathen or at liome, 
and have been the means of saving them through 
our money, will welcome us at death into ever- 
lasting habitations. So that in a sense the eagle 
stamped on every dollar we give to God will be 
transformed into an angel to welcome us to the 
portals of bliss. 

Riches when used only for the present life 
are like the clouds that shine brightly during 
the brief day of our earthly existence, but when 
the sun of life is set, they turn to cold lumps 
of darkness and fade into everlasting night; 
but when used for the glory of God, they 
resemble the vapors around the sun, which are 
always bright with an internal and intrinsic 
light. 

4th. Earthly wealth is not really our own. 
Our possession of it is more of a fiction than a 
reality; it belonged to others, it will soon 
belong to others again. We borrow the gar- 
ments of animals to clothe ourselves, we proudlj-^ 
deck our bodies with silk which has already 
served the silk-worm for a shroud, and will soon 



144 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

serve us in the same capacity. How emphatic 
the language of the Holy Ghost, "We brought 
nothing into this world, and it is certain we can 
carry nothing out." We make our advent in 
nakedness and poverty, we assume control of all 
earthly treasures for a brief period, we claim 
the earth and the sea, we contest for trifles, and 
then pass out leaving all behind us, except that 
character which we have formed while passing 
across this narrow stage of being. But the treas- 
ure which we have laid up in heaven, is, in a high 
and proper sense, our own. The industry that 
worked, the act of giving, the love that 
prompted the act, the prayer that accompanied 
the act, are emphatically our own. This 
species of wealth can never be transferred 
to another ; it is a kind of wealth that was 
never borrowed and will never be relinquished. 
The increase of this wealth does not impoverish 
another. How sad to think that not only world- 
lings, but vast numbers of professed Christians 
are using this world in such a way as to lay up 
no good store for the time to come. 

We can lay up treasure in heaven by observ- 
ing three things. 

1st. By giving the best we can. The best 
of time, of thought, of health, of influence, and 
by giving the best percentage we can of our 
earnings or our income. 



HEAVENLY TREASURE. 145 

2d. By giving everything in the best spirit. 
Cheerfully, gladly, without grumbling or grudg- 
ing ; by giving regularly, religiously, rejoicingly ; 
by giving in the love of Jesus, for the love of 
our fellows, looking for more love as our great- 
est reward. 

3d. By giving to the best ends, to save the 
souls of men ; by giving for immediate relief, 
instead of giving for long results in the ages to 
come ; by giving in such a way as to accom- 
plish most directlj^ and immediately the best 
results first to the souls and then to the bodies 
of mankind. What we give, we save. We are 
emigrating to a distant world and the treasure 
we send ahead of us will form our best estate. 



CHAPTER XXVIIL 

MAKING FRIENDS WITH MAMMON. 

SIN perverts every legitimate faculty of the 
soul. It also poisons and perverts every 
species of earthlj^ treasure and activity. Just 
as divine grace can save and purify the worst of 
human beings, so grace can, through human 
beings, lift money from being a curse into mak- 
ing for us everlasting friendships in heaven. 
Many persons inquire what our Lord could 
mean by commanding us " to make to ourselves 
friends of the mammon of unrighteousness ; 
that when we fail, these friends may receive us 
into everlasting habitations." Luke 16: 9. 

Satan and Jesus are both bidding for the 
use of our money. Satan holds out to us 
earthly pleasure, fashion, fine raiment, luxurious 
ease, and transitory amusements ; and money 
used for such purposes, and worse than wasted 
on tobacco and sinful indulgences, or miserly 
hoarded, will be turned into an infinite curse. 
Every dollar so wasted, the eagle stamped on the 
dollar, will turn into a fiend whose talons will 

(146) 



MAKING FRIENDS WITH MAMMON. 147 

claw the heart in the future world. Jesus 
offers us the privilege of helping him save the 
world, of relieving tlie poor and needy, of 
investing in the spread of holiness, of putting 
our means into salvation agencies, and every 
dollar so used will be eternally saved in heaven ; 
and the eagle stamped on everj^ such dollar will 
be turned into a bird of Paradise, and tlie 
Goddess of Liberty will be as an angel of love 
to welcome us to portals of bliss. 

It is thus that money represents character. 
In itself a gross piece of materialism, j-et by 
the use it is put to, it becomes the incarnation 
of moral quality. It is invested witli the attri- 
butes of either sin or saintliness, industry or 
idleness, prayer or prodigality. The liberal use 
of money for the Lord is o^ie of the great needs 
of Christian training. The selfishness and 
stinginess of professed Christians is absolutely 
appalling. There are thousands and thousands 
of men and women in the churches, with from 
twenty-five to one hundred thousand dollars, 
who do not give fifty dollars a year to God. 
Tliere are even some rich preachers who are 
notorious beggars, but who seldom give a dollar. 
Is not such penuriousness just as great a crime 
in the sight of God as what is commonlj^ termed 
gross immorality? The most appalling thing 
about stinginess is, that it seems so respectable ; 



148 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

instead of being looked upon as a positive, 
disreputable sin, it is quietl)^ winked at as a 
mere weakness. 

In order to make friends out of money, it 
should be used as much as possible for direct 
results in soul saving. It seems to me this is 
always the teaching of Jesus. Instead of 
endowing great establishments, and piling up 
millions in some institution, to bless far off 
generations, if more money could be used in 
the immediate work of carrying on revivals, 
conducting soul-saving conventions, opening up 
missions, both abroad and for the non-church 
goers at home, God would be more glorified. 
How this thought will impress us, when we look 
at the great cathedrals in Europe, in which 
hundreds of millions of wealth is entombed, 
Avhich can never have a resurrection. Enormous 
piles of grandeur in which only a debased or 
very shallow form of religion is taught. There 
is coming in the American churches the same 
craze to entomb great fortunes in cold stone, 
where neither God nor man will get more than 
a bare pittance out of it for direct soul saving. 
I know many will disagree with me, but it is 
just this popular drift of the mind which I affirm 
is contrary to Christ. Men that can be induced 
to put tens of thousands into some cold, formal 
monument, would not give a hundred dollars to 



MAKING FRIENDS WITH MAMMON. 149 

cany on a great revival where hundreds of souls 
could be saved. 

The financial columbiads are loaded with 
greenbacks, and fired off at long range, to bless 
unborn generations ; when the same ammunition 
fired at short range, could mow down the 
enemies of the Lord, and capture multitudes for 
Jesus in the living present. Another way to 
make heavenly friendships out of the use of 
money is to administer on our own estates 
before we die. There seems a terrible blunder 
in the settling up of the estates of dead people. 
Why should Christian men and women, who 
have wealth, feel bound to leave it all to their 
children ? Why should not God come in for a 
share ? The Bible begins with, " In the begin- 
ning God," but the lives of most professed 
Christians read, ''At the last God." How 
many fortunes, even among church members, 
are utterly squandered and wrecked. What 
quarrelling among heirs, what smashing of wills, 
what a carnival among tricky lawyers, to help 
such things along! How many thousands, hardly 
earned and saved by industrious and plain 
Christians, are worse than squandered by godless 
children, or smoking and whisky-drinking sons- 
in-law. Oh ! how Christian men and women 
will wish in eternity they had settled up their own 
estates, and given God his portion before they 



150 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

died. What we give to the Lord we save. The 
only treasure we can lay up in heaven, is what 
we send on ahead of ns ; and this is the tliought 
suggested by our Saviour. He does not repre- 
sent us as welcoming our money to heaven, but 
on the other hand represents our money as 
having gone on ahead of us, and transformed 
into immortal friends, standing at the crystal 
port of light, to welcome us to everlasting 
habitations. God help us whether we are rich 
or poor, to give wisely, willingly, regularly, 
gladly, according to our several ability. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE FAITH OF THE SYRO-PHENICIAN WOMAN. 

THE most wonderful truths and thoughts are 
those which are wrought out in living ex- 
perience. No definition of any trait of character 
can at all compare with a sublime exhibition of 
that trait in life. In the fifteenth chapter of 
Matthew there is recorded an instance of 
victorious faith which, though so unlike in out- 
ward detail to common experience, yet the inner 
secret principles involved in it enter the lives of 
all Christians., 

" Then Jesus went thence, and departed into 
the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And behold a 
woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, 
and cried unto Him, saying. Have mercy on me, 
O Lord, thou Son of David, my daughter is 
grievously vexed with a devil. But He answered 
her not a word. And His disciples came and 
besought Him, saying, Send her away, for she 
crieth after us. But He answered and said, I 
am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house 
of Israel. Then came she and worshiped Him, 



152 THK SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

saying, Lord help me. But He answered and 
said, It is not meet to take the children's beard 
and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, 
Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall 
from their master's table. Then Jesus answered 
and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith, 
be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her 
daughter Avas made whole from that very hour." 
Matt. 15 : 21-28. 

A thoughtful analysis of this incident will 
give us many suggestions concerning the spirit- 
ual life. 

The first thought is the coming together of 
want and supply. " Jesus went," the " woman 
came." Jesus foreknew her need and her seek- 
ing faith. She had heard of Him and was 
eager to find Him. Here is an instance of a 
seeking Saviour and a seeking soul. Is it not 
true, as a rule, that people get what they seek ? 
There is a tremendous meaning in the words, 
''He that seeketh findetli." Ten thousand 
incidents and evidences in nature, historj^ and 
grace confirm it. From the ends of the earth, 
from the depths of eternity and space, want and 
supply come together, Prayer is the expression 
of want, when the want is overwhelming the 
prayer is prevailing. The spirit of Jesus moves 
toward a great crying want with more accuracy 
than air moves toward a vacuum. 



FAITH OF THE SYRO-PHENICIAN WOMAN, 153 

Another suggestion is the discovery and 
honest confession of the malady. " My daughter 
is grievously vexed with a devil." She did not 
cover up the malady with fictitious and Latinized 
names. She had enough discernment to trace 
the malady directly to the demon, and then ^he 
had the humility and transparency to confess 
the whole thing to Christ with all its mortifying 
reality. Here are two tilings that stand in the 
way of the salvation of millions. They do not 
trace their maladies to sin, and are not honest 
enough to make a perfect, unvarnished confes- 
sion. We see here four great barriers her faith 
had to surmount, namely, divine silence, human 
coldness, caste and prejudice. If we look at 
these in detail, we find that they illustrate the 
vital issues in many lives to-day. 

1. Her faith surmounted divine silence. In 
response to her cry, ''He answered her not a 
word." How many thousands of souls have 
been balked at this point in their prayer and 
faith. Jesus moved on with His calm dignity 
as if deaf to her cry or insensible to her need. 
Has it not often been so with us ? The heavens 
have seemed brass, the Lord seemed to be indif- 
ferent. God has spoken so many tilings in His 
Word and providence, all the earth and times 
seem filled with divine utterances, and yet in 
our particular case, and on the one vital point at 



154 THE SEC BET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

issue with us, there seems to be so little said. 
There is such an utter silence on the one point 
so vital to us. Tliere seems no answer to the 
one dominant question of our hearts. This 
unanswered question is a great test of faith. 
To keep on praying and believing, tliough God 
calmly and unansweringly moves on, is where 
the faith of many break down. 

She apprehended a benevolent, loving nature 
in Jesus in spite of the apparent indifference of 
His conduct. Have we a similar apprehension 
of God ? If tliere be something upon which 
the written Word gives no special utterance, if 
providence gives no satisfactory answer, does 
our faith penetrate the mantle of silence and 
apprehend the nature of God, do we still believe 
in Him against all unpropitious seeming ? 

This principle of divine silence will form a 
test in every life, and in multiplied ways, and if 
we want to know the inexpressible joy of hear- 
ing His voice and having Him speak to us 
some special and particular word that will 
perfectly satisfy our personal need, our faith 
must endure the testing of His silence. 

After all, the very silence of Jesus is a sort of 
an unwritten word, an unspoken truth, by 
which He teaches us how to pra}^ and how to 
trust. If our hearts go out after Him, His very 
silence will draw us on in more urgent petition, 



FAITH OF THE ^YRO-PHENICIAN WOMAN, 155 

for as long as He is silent He does not refuse or 
repel. Had He spoken too soon the fullness of 
her petition would not have been uttered, and 
so He held his voice back that the depth and 
volume of her cry might be poured forth. God 
waits that we may utter all the fullness of our 
heart before Him, that over and over, in every 
possible form and feature, our need may be 
expressed. And thus oftentimes His not 
answering us a word becomes a magnet to draw 
us on to a longer and louder crj\ Blessed are 
those who make the silence of God not a source 
of discouragement, but the basis of faith. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE FAITH OF THE SYRO-PHENICIAN WOMAN. 

AFTER her faith had withstood the test of 
the divine silence : 
2. The next barrier her faith met was the 
coldness of the human heart. His disciples 
came and besought Him, saying, ''Send her 
away for she crieth after us." We are not to 
understand from these words that the disciples 
had any hate or ill-will, but their words indi- 
cated that her crying embarrassed them, that 
they had but little sympathy and could not 
enter into her distress or appreciate the fervor 
of her prayer. Her faith pushed its way per- 
sistently over their ecclesiastical fastidiousness, 
their false taste of propriety. Her conscious 
need was so desperate it burst its way through 
every barrier of etiquette, human opinion, false 
modesty, whimsical prudence, human criticism, 
and like a mighty torrent tore its way through 
banks of human coldness across the fences of 
social opinion, across the nice gardens of 
fastidious feeling, and did not stop until it 

(156) 



FAITH OF THE SYRO-PHENICIAN WOMAN. IST 

em^itied itself in the great ocean heart of Jesus. 

This must be so with every earnest seeker 
after God. Our faith must surmount the cold- 
ness, the lack of sympathy, the foolish notions 
of propriety, whether in our friends or in cold, 
stiff ecclesiastics. 

It often happens that souls who are seek- 
ing God either for pardon or heart-purity are 
too eager for human sympathy. They seem to 
Avant a little human nursing, but oftentimes 
such human sympathy only hinders the work of 
thorough crucifixion and is an impediment to- 
true faith. 

When we see our malady in its depth and 
awfulness, and get a holy desperation for com- 
plete deliverance, we will not go hunting for 
the little plaster of human sympathy, nor be 
thwarted by any amount of innuendoes, or red 
tape, or ecclesiastical forms, but will push our 
way through to Jesus, right through mountains, 
of dignitaries or forests of etiquette^ or deserts 
of neglect. As in the case of this woman the 
very withdrawing of human sympathy and the 
tender regards of others only removes the props: 
from the soul and accelerates its speed to Jesus- 

3. The third barrier her faith had to sur- 
mount was that of caste. Jesus answered and 
said, '' I am not sent but unto the lost sheep 
of the house of Israel." Here was the great. 



158 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER, 

mountain of eastern caste put across the track 
of her faith. 

The Jews were then the high caste, and she 
belonged not even to the high caste heathen, 
but to tlie lower caste of Syrians. Her faith 
had to climb over the difficulty of an ill-favored 
race, of race distinctions, of mixed heredity, 
with all the environments and unfortunate 
prejudices belonging to them. 

Instead of being discouraged and turned back 
in her prayer, these very words of seeming repul- 
sion only intensified her yearning cry. Then 
she came and worshiped Him, saying, '-'- Lord 
help me." 

How many thousands in all ages have been 
tuined back in their faith by these very things 
involved in this principle of caste. Some have 
thought they were not of the elect, others 
have been discouraged by prejudices, by low 
and unfortunate birth, or by some terrible he- 
redity, or by poor and unpropitious environ- 
ments. True faith is born of deep want. If 
souls could only appreciate the desperatenesg of 
their disease, their cry after a complete remedy 
would bound over all the distinctions of race, 
caste, predestination, birth or training, and turn 
every seeming repulsion into the fuel of fervor 
and make every seeming discouragement only 
a cause of more earnest prayer. 



FAITH OF THE SYRO-FIIENICIAN WOMAN. 159 

4. The fourth barrier her faith surmounted 
was the mortification .of being called a Gentile 
dog. Jesus answered and said, " It is not meet 
to take the children's bread and to cast it to the 
dogs." 

If slie had any pride, any unbelief, any faint- 
ness of heart in seeking, it would have retreated 
into this last ditch of being called a dog. She 
had in her that true heart metal which Jesus 
had when He " despised the cross and endured 
the shame." Instead of being discouraged by 
this epithet of common degradation, her intense 
soul intuitively found in it an argument for 
the answer of her praj^er. She said, '^ Truth, 
Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which 
fall from their master's table." 

She would rather be a dog than to have her 
daughter possessed of a devil. Such humility 
of heart never fails to touch the heart of God. 

What a contrast to thousands who would 
rather be possessed with all sorts of demons 
than to take the place or the epithet of a dog. 
This woman would be content with even a dog's 
share. One crumb from the master's table 
would satisfy her longing heart. The essence 
of her response unveiled boundless humility 
and the willingness to receive whatever God 
would give. 

This is the secret to the answer to 
prayer, to lose all pride, to receive meekly any 



160 THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 

epithet that God or men may apply to us, to 
stop dictating terms to the Lord, to yield up 
the form or the manner of blessing we shall 
receive, to receive gladly the will of God 
whether it comes to us in crumbs or loaves. 

This is the spirit of victorious prayer. It 
was the bursting forth of such a faith that 
harmonized with the very spirit of Jesus that 
so pleased and honored God as to cause Jesus 
to say, '' O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto 
thee even as thou wilt." He gave her the 
key to inexhaustible treasures. She could now 
have her own will when that will had passsd 
over to God. It was safe to let her have her 
way when that way was in the perfect agree- 
ment with the spirit of Jesus. 

In various forms and degrees our faith must 
surmount corresponding barriers and difficulties 
in hers. Blessed are they who, like her, turn 
all apparent discouragements into encourage- 
ments, who turn all rebuffs into spurs of pur- 
suit, whose faith gathers strength at every 
difficulty, from the silence of God down to 
the mortification of being classed with dogs. 

Her daughter was made whole from that 
very hour. 

How speedily, how beautifully, how perfectly 
the power of God accomplishes results when 
everything in us is taken out of the way of 
the sweep of His love and power. 









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